Tangents
by irisbud
Summary: Story takes place across 3 different parallel universes, one based on cannon through HBP DH non-compliant , one in which Hermione’s parents removed her from Hogwarts after the incident with the troll, and one that has taken some more “fannon" twists
1. Prolog

AN: I don't own the Harry Potter universe; I am just borrowing it from JKR/Warner Bros. for my own pleasure and intend to make no profit from it. This disclaimer applies for the whole story.

Summary: This story will take place across three different parallel universes, one based on cannon through HBP (DH non-compliant), one in which Hermione's parents removed her from Hogwarts after the incident with the troll, and one that has taken some more "fannon" twists. After being established, there will be some overlapping, and chaos will ensure. I started this a couple of years ago. If anyone is interested I will try to finish it! If not, enjoy this part...Please review!

PROLOG:

_It had been the same for some time now, she reflected as she looked around her tower room, her eyes glancing across the rows of teacups and crystal balls the room offered. She had sunk low onto a velvet pouf, trying to clear her mind, to free her vision. For the first time, she felt at a loss. Three roads, three paths, converging for a brief moment before heading again along their separate ways. What did it mean? What could it mean?_

_The cards had never come up this way before, never been so indecipherable. She could tell about injuries, heartbreak and even death. She could read the future, after all. There was no cryptic message coming to her this time, though. No secrets being revealed. It was simply three roads, three roads meeting and again going on their way. She frowned ever so slightly. Some small, sick part of her liked predicting death and destruction. It made her feel important. There was nothing deadly about a trio of roads._

_Taking a long sip of tea, she shook her head, drawing her breath deeply before dumping out the leaves on a nearby saucer. There they were again, the blasted roads, mocking her from the pale white background of china they had fallen upon._

_Three roads. It was driving her mad. She saw them everywhere she looked. They were clouding her Inner Eye, distorting her visions of the future, changing her very outlook on life. She predicted everything in threes. She assigned homework in threes. _

_Three roads. It had to mean something._

_Three Roads._

_Three Roads._

_Three Roads…_

_***_


	2. Track A, Chapter 1

ALL ABOARD

TRACK A

CH 1.

Hermione Granger hated herself. She hated the hair that was mousy brown and had been cut short because no effort to tame it had ever been remotely successful. She hated the way she was sneered at in the hallways of her school on weekends when she strolled about in the plain, comfortable clothes that she happened to adore. She hated the way her eyes seemed to always be squinting, as though she was reading. She hated her horrible braces and wondered how, as the child of two dentists, she could have been cursed with such horrid teeth. Mostly, though, she hated that she was odd.

She was standing before a mirror in the hall of her all-girls boarding school, packing her things. She had been expelled the night previous because of claims from her three roommates, all of whom seemed to be avoiding her now, that during an argument with one of the girls, a blonde-haired, green-eyed bimbo by the name of Penelope, Hermione's hair had actually managed to stand on end (she didn't know why this was any kind of a surprise) and Penelope had begun rising from the floor. Hermione had tried to explain to the Headmistress that she hadn't done it, that she _couldn't_ have done. Professor Tucker would have none of it though. Hermione had been expelled immediately, and was going to be leaving within the hour.

It wasn't as though this was the only time, the Headmistress had reminded her fairly. What about that incident with Noelle Crocket last year, when the soup she had been eating had mysteriously leapt from the bowl and splattered down Noelle's shirt after the two of them had rowed? What about when Hermione had become enraged one day and all of her dorm mates had been forced to show up for breakfast the next morning with inexplicably orange hair? Hermione didn't see how she could have done these things, they simply didn't make sense, and if there was anything that she knew about, it was sense. The Headmistress, however, seemed to see things differently and had, at last, had enough.

Hermione slung her bag over her right shoulder and reached down to grab the handle of her trunk so that she could drag it down to the Head's office, where she had been told that her parents would be waiting for her. She sighed and grunted as she lurched along, no one offering to help her, and many of the passers-by scurrying off in the opposite direction. It had always been like this.

There had been dreams, though, dreams that were different. She often dreamt of a place where she had felt closer to fitting in that she ever had in these damp and musty halls. She dreamt of patched and frayed wizard's hats, of feasts with golden plates and goblets, of ghosts and broomsticks and trolls. She didn't know what these things meant, but prayed every night that she would dream of them, for they seemed to be the only tenuous threads linking her with her sanity.

She sighed, stopping outside the office, panting to catch her breath before she entered. There seemed to be voices coming from inside, and she wondered if her parents had arrived already. Curious, she leaned in towards the door, pressing her ear up against it.

"…schoolwork has been suffering lately. I feel like there simply isn't any way of reaching her anymore. We've been trying for five years now."

"I know. We understand," Hermione heard her father say.

"She's so very bright, but lately it's as though she's lost control of herself. She can't seem to do the work any more and, quite frankly, the students are becoming frightened of her. I just can't have her here any longer. I hope you understand."

"It's the illness," Hermione heard her mother reassure the Head Mistress. "She wasn't like this until she spent those two months being sick. She was different after that. I think it may have scarred her for life."

"I know, I know," the Headmistress sighed. "It is difficult to come to a new school in the middle of term, when everyone else had friends already."

"We are grateful you took her though, we thought it would be easier, given the circumstances. You see, she doesn't remember her old school at all."

"Poor dear," the Headmistress said, and there was actually a note of sympathy in her voice. "I do wish her luck, but you understand…"

"Of course we do. I wonder where she is now?"

As though on cue, Hermione knocked on the office door, trying to forget everything that she had just heard and smiling brightly at her mum and dad.

"Ready?" asked her mother. Hermione nodded, thanked the Headmistress, and said her goodbyes, leaving in the wake of her parents, not terribly sorry to be seeing the last of those halls.

Once in the car, Hermione sat in the backseat, picking lint from the upholstery and brooding. Her parents said nothing, merely continued exchanging darkly significant looks with one another. At last, the teenager seemed to find her voice. "Where will you send me now?"

Her parents looked at one another. "Oh, we were thinking maybe back to your old school."

She frowned. "I thought you said the curriculum was rubbish?" Truth be told, she could remember nothing of the institution that she had so briefly attended as she was turning twelve. She had fallen ill shortly after the start of term, her parents had explained, and they had been forced to withdraw her enrollment. They had never let her return, citing that a new school would mean a fresh start and telling her that her other school's curriculum had been rubbish upon second look.

Her mother ran a hand through hair which had, like Hermione's, been cut short in an effort to tame it. Though Hermione felt that the effect was nothing if not boyish upon herself she found it cute and tidy upon her mother. "It's time that we told you something, dear."

Hermione leaned forward, interested. "Was it too hard there?" she asked eagerly. "I can do it, you know. I would have been able to keep up if I hadn't gotten sick. I know that my work hasn't been perfect lately, but I was still earning the highest marks at Treylane. I was just…frustrated," she finished lamely, her emphatic speech having evaporated into mediocrity before her eyes.

"No, it wasn't too hard. It was too…different."

"Different?"

Her mother sighed again, deeply as though trying to pluck up her own courage. "Hogwarts-"

"Hogwarts? Don't you mean Beckham?"

"No Hermione, that was just another lie we told to try to protect you. Hogwarts, the school that we had you taken away from, was a school of magic."

"Magic?" She felt as though her whole world were collapsing in upon itself. "The dreams then, the ghosts and the gold and the feasts and the hats and the trolls, they were real? It was real?" Through her shock, she could feel the slightest twinge of anger beginning to rear its ugly head. Those dreams that she cherished, that she enjoyed so much she never wished to wake from them could have been her life if the couple in the front seat had only let them.

"It was troll that made us realize the danger you were in, Hermione. You wrote to us just after Halloween telling about some gallant battle you had fought with a troll. We couldn't let you be killed there! We had no idea that the Headmaster would be so irresponsible as to let such a thing happen within the walls of his school. We came straight away to pull you out."

There was a heavy, screaming silence within the passenger compartment of the car. "And did I want to go?"

Her mother squirmed uncomfortably, while her father feigned that driving on the deserted straight road they were traveling required intense concentration. "Well, no," the older woman said at last. "You were in a right state, actually. You told us that you had finally found friends. We told you that everything would work out for the best, but it never has. I'm so sorry, Hermione." She looked at her daughter, tears welling up in her eyes. Hermione, however, had no sympathy to spare for her.

"Sorry? You think a troll could have done more damage to me than the past five years has done? You think some magical catastrophe could have given me as much pain as all the indifference, all the stares, all of the pointing. You mean to tell me that I could have been saved from all of that but you chose to give me the life of my nightmares when I could have had the life of my dreams? Sorry! Sorry! It just isn't good enough." She spat the last at her parents.

Her father looked angry, but her mother touched his arm. "We've contacted the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Hermione. He says that he would be happy to reenroll you." She smiled fondly at her daughter. "He says you were such a bright girl."

"Aren't I a bit old?" she spat, still lashing out against them.

"He says that he will make arrangements for you, and that he will be more than happy to lift the memory modifications-"

"The what?!?"

"Memory modifications, dear. They were for your own good. We asked that your memory be altered (those wizards can do that you know) so that you wouldn't remember any of that horrible troll incident."

"It must not have worked very well," Hermione said tartly, "seeing as I have dreams about it."

"Professor Dumbledore, that's the Headmaster, dear, warned up that such things aren't foolproof. He said that there can be flashes. He urged us to make up a cover story if we really wanted to go through with it. That's why we told you that you were deliriously ill."

"And if I do go, will you pull me out again if you feel I'm in danger?" Her eyes flashed fire.

"No, Hermione," her mother said softly. "You see, what the Headmaster told us as we were leaving is, I'm afraid, coming true."

"And that was?"

Her mother sighed again as though she were Atlas, looking her daughter square in the eye as she spoke. "He told us that the greatest danger of all was for you not to learn magic. He said that magic at its worst was far less of a danger than magic that was uncontrollable and unexpected. He said there could be incidences, that things could happen. He said that one day you would be an inadvertent danger to everyone around you, including yourself."

"He said that," Hermione practically spat, "and you still saw fit to remove me?"

"I thought that that day would never come, despite his reassurances that I was very, very wrong. God help us all though, it has."

She turned around and stared at the pavement rolling smoothly beneath the wheels of the car, the heavy silence falling like a blanket over all of them once again.

"Take me," Hermione said suddenly, breaking the thrumming emptiness. "I want to go. Now."

"But, dear, you've just had a terrible experience. Don't you think it would be best if…"

"You said that this Dumbledore fellow thought I should reenroll. I want to do it now."

A resigned look crossed her mother's face. "Whatever you wish, Hermione. We'll send you straight away."

"You can't just drive me now?"

Her mother laughed softly. "There's a lot more I need to tell you, Hermione." She handed her daughter a thick black book entitled _Hogwarts: A History_. "Maybe you should start with this."

Greedily, Hermione reached out and snatched the book from her mother's hand, leaned back against the car door in the warm rays of sunlight shining through the glass and began to read.

***

"She's coming back." Ron Weasley burst into the dormitory he shared with Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnigan, and Dean Thomas. Harry was lying on his own four poster, staring morosely up at the ceiling, a look that was not quite a frown and not quite a scowl on his face. He looked at his red headed best mate lazily, not knowing, or really caring what he was on about.

"Who?" He tried to sound as though he cared, but lately it had become more and more difficult to care about anything. He had hoped to be elected Quidditch Captain this year, having missed out on becoming a prefect last year (Neville Longbottom had been chosen then, due, in no small part, to Harry and Ron's abysmal grades). Again, however, his marks had thwarted his dreams. The captaincy had gone to Katie Bell, the only remaining member of the team Harry had first played on upon coming to Hogwarts. He scowled, thinking about this. He didn't want to be bitter, but there were times when it was difficult not to.

Ron looked at him questioningly. "Are you alright?"

Harry shrugged noncommittally. He didn't know by what standards "alright" was to be measured anymore.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Hermione Granger. She's coming back."

"Who?" Harry sat up on his elbows, annoyed that Ron had interrupted his brooding to bring him news he could have cared less about.

Ron sighed, looking exasperated. "Hermione Granger. You know, the girl we saved from the troll on Halloween in our first year. Remember, her parents pulled her out of school right after that."

"Oh, yeah." Harry grinned slightly. "Your girlfriend."

"She is not my girlfriend. She never was. We were only eleven."

Harry snorted, feeling slightly more jovial as he poked fun at Ron. "Right."

"We were only eleven," Ron repeated, blushing slightly, the tips of his ears reddening.

Harry said nothing, just raised his eyebrows.

"Anyway. I heard it from Neville and Parvati. They said McGonagall told them at the Prefect's meeting this afternoon." Ron looked into a nearby mirror, smoothing out his thick pate of hair. "Do you think I look too freckly?"

"I think that's the least of your worries mate," Harry said, grinning.


	3. Track A, Chapter 2

TRACK A

CHAPTER 2

"Hermione! It's great to see you back. I wondered what had ever happened to you after…well, you know." Parvati Patil grinned hugely at her former roommate.

Hermione fought the urge to roll her eyes and instead smiled back graciously, trying not to let her braces show. If the girl before her had thought of her one time in the past few years, she would have been extraordinarily surprised. "It's great to be back," she offered.

"Did you miss it?"

Hermione thought for a moment. "I guess. I mean, I had dreams about it, but I thought they were just dreams. I mean, you can't really miss something you never had, can you? All the memory charms kept me from knowing what I was imagining was real. I'm just anxious to get started again, you know. I'm so far behind, I don't know how I'll ever catch up." Hermione knew she was babbling, but couldn't seem to stop herself. "Professor Dumbledore thought that I might be able to finish in far less than seven years if I took extra lessons from all of the professors."

"Oh," said Parvati, looking slightly dumbstruck at all of the information Hermione had imparted upon her. "Well, good luck. Ready?" They were standing before the portrait of the Fat Lady. Hermione was amazed at just how much she had been able to remember after the memory charm had been lifted. To her, it seemed as though she had left this place only yesterday. She supposed that, having been tucked away safe from perusal, the memories had not been able to deteriorate as quickly as they normally would. Hermione nodded to Parvati, who gave the password, "Destiny."

When she stepped into the Gryffindor common room, she felt as though she were entering a dream world. It was much as she remembered: squashy armchairs, a merrily crackling fire, happy voices, and an atmosphere so warm and inviting she felt she would always be at home here. Parvati led her around the room, reintroducing her to those sixth and seventh years she had known before, and giving her the names of some of the younger students, whom she would be starting her classes with.

"I'll just let you mingle," said Parvati, smiling. "If you need anything else just ask Neville or me." The darker girl wandered off in search of her own friends.

The red headed boy Parvati had introduced as Ron Weasley waved to her from over by a chess board and she cautiously made her way toward him. Her memories regarding him were slightly ambiguous. She wasn't certain if the two of them had been friendly, there were recollections that could argue both sides of the friendship debate, but right now she would settle for anyone, for anything. She smiled as she stood watching him soundly defeating the famous Harry Potter in a game of chess.

She let out a small squeal when one of Ron's players suddenly decapitated one of Harry's. Ron looked up at her, a grin splitting across his freckled face. "I take it you don't remember Wizard's Chess, Hermione?"

"Is it always so violent?" She asked weakly, feeling a slight sickness in the pit of her stomach. Chess had never been her thing, even under normal circumstances, but there was something positively primeval about the game unfolding before her.

Ron chuckled slightly, shaking his head. "I guess you could say that." He reached across the board again, watching his move culminate in a spectacular checkmate against Harry, who scowled, before putting his players away in their battered box and turning to Hermione. "What was it like, you know, after you left?"

"Like going to a muggle school." She shrugged. "They put a memory charm on me so that I couldn't remember having been here even. I dreamt about it sometimes, though."

"They put a memory charm on you?"

"My parents didn't want me to be magic anymore. They said it was too dangerous, and they thought that it was very irresponsible of Professor Dumbledore to allow a troll to roam the hallways of the school." She rolled her eyes. "Do you remember that night?"

"Hard to forget, isn't it?" Harry spoke up for the first time. "I suppose you never forget the first time you do battle with something mad. Mind you, it was our own fault that time, at least."

"There've been more trolls since then?" Hermione's brown eyes grew wide as she took in the duo before her. They exchanged a glance so full of meaning and memory that she felt as though she were intruding upon something private, something indecent. She blushed slightly and looked away.

"I wish it had only been trolls," Harry replied gravely. He looked sideways at Ron again, who nodded. Harry looked uncomfortable, then jumped up rigidly. "I'm going to bed," he announced, turning on his heel even as he spoke and speeding away from the room.

Hermione felt terrible. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice choking slightly. Already, she was ruining everything with her own ignorance. "I didn't mean anything by it. I was just wondering…"

"Don't worry about it," Ron said reassuringly, though he frowned in the direction of the staircase Harry had fled up. "He's, um, a little moody I guess you could say." He smiled slightly again, though the tips of his ears were now burning red as though he felt that he had said far too much. "What did Dumbledore say about you taking classes? I know you were the best student in our class, but five years is a lot of missed work to make up."

"I was? The best student in the class, I mean?"

"Sure. You knew all the textbooks by heart when we came to school. You were so bossy." He laughed, but the smile died on his face when he noticed her expression.

"Oh. I'll just go up to my room now, I think." She could feel the tears burning at the corners of her eyes again, and willed them not to spill down her cheeks. For a moment, she had felt so comfortable talking to the boy seated next to her, but now the warm reassurance was tainted with something cold and sadly familiar. It was like being back at Treylane all over again.

"Wait," Ron said, grabbing her arm as she made to stand up. "I didn't mean anything by it. You were still my friend."

"I had friends? I mean, I was?" She blushed again.

"Sure," he shrugged, his voice unconcerned. "Everyone needs a know-it-all."

She looked into his eyes and saw the kindness behind his ribbing. She allowed herself to laugh instead of letting the tears spill down.

"Listen, if you need anything, just ask me. I'm a terrible student, I always was. Too bad I haven't had you to help me with homework all these years. Just ignore Harry when he's being a little berk. He's my best mate, and I shouldn't talk about him like that, I know, but he's been through a lot these past years and it hasn't all settled well with him." He smiled kindly at her again, turning slightly red as he pulled a sheaf of parchment out of his bag. "Uh, I know you might not understand all of this, but, you know, looking over it might be good for you, well, anyway, um, do you think you could like, ah, check my spelling and stuff on this homework."

"Uh, I guess." She felt a little uncomfortable, but flattered all the same as she pulled the papers towards her. She worked over them a little slower than was truly necessary, trying to grasp the concepts and familiarize herself with the terms. As she worked, she questioned Ron about all that she had missed, and he in turn filled her in on the life she had unwillingly left behind.

After what seemed like hours, Hermione bade her new friend goodnight and headed up to her new dormitory. Dumbledore had decided that she would be sharing with the girls her own age rather than the first years. He felt that she would be more comfortable with her peers, and also said that he was convinced it would not be long before she was skipping through grades as though they didn't even exist.

Nervously, she stepped through the doorway into a room blaring with loud music. Parvati was standing before the mirror charming her hair purple while a girl Hermione knew was called Lavender read a quiz aloud to the Prefect from a magazine entitled _Witch Weekly_. Hermione was fascinated by the hair coloring charm, and poured all of her concentration in to memorizing the incantation and wand movements it required, her nerves alleviated somewhat.

Shyly, she walked over to the rooms only unoccupied bed and nightstand and deposited her things, arranging them in a comfortable, homey way. She felt a great knot of trepidation welling in her chest as she walked over to Parvati. "Could you show me?" she asked, trying not to look overly awed. The girls were her age, perhaps younger, but she still felt as though worlds of experience separated them.

Parvati grinned. "I guess I could try. I'm not very good. It was supposed to be blue."

Willing herself not to be disheartened by this disturbing bit of news, Hermione said, "I don't care. It's better than I can do now."

Parvati raised her perfectly groomed eyebrows. "It's your funeral, I suppose." She demonstrated the charm a few more times, emphasizing the enunciation and her wrist movements. Hermione nodded when she felt somewhat confident, and pointed her own wand at her short crop of hair.

"Uh, well, that can happen sometimes." Parvati waved her wand over the writhing bunch of worms that had replaced Hermione's frizzy locks and set the latter's hair back right. Lavender shrieked with mirth, and in a moment, all three girls were rolling on the floor, laughing until their sides ached.

"I think I should practice," Hermione gasped, gleefully. She was still smiling when she climbed into her four poster, pulling the curtains around her as she bade her roommates goodnight.

At long last, she had found somewhere that she belonged. Even with her dubious status concerning her year and ability, she felt more at home here than she ever had at Treylane. She had actually smiled, laughed even, and it hadn't been to hide the pain.

"I love magic," she whispered to the silent bedclothes around her, feeling as though she were home at last.


	4. Track A, Chapter 3

TRACK A

CHAPTER 3

The dark man scowled, his irritation evident upon his pale face. Private lessons. As if all of the classes he had to endure throughout the day weren't enough, he, along with many other members of the staff, were being forced to give up the solitude of their evenings to individually tutor some stupid muggle born whose parents had see fit to reenroll her after a five year hiatus. Albus, in all of his infinite optimism, had challenged his staff to help the girl to graduate with her class, all of whom were now sixth years. Severus remembered rolling his eyes at this, for Flitwick had been characteristically jovial at the idea, and the eternal Gryffindor that was Minerva had nodded as though steeling herself for the challenge at hand. He supposed that she was determined to prove her worth to Dumbledore in any way possible. His lip curled slightly at this thought. Would she never give it a rest?

As if having a meeting over the Granger twit, or Beaver Teeth as he remembered her from her first days at Hogwarts (he had a habit of labeling students with their name and one particular eccentricy; in this case, a rather large one), had not been bad enough, Sybill Trelawney had come stumbling into the meeting reeking of alcohol and tripping over her scarves. She had squawked something about cards and roads while the rest of the staff had tried their hardest to hide smirks. Snape had been hoping that the dreadful woman would be fired anytime now but as yet his prayers had gone unanswered. Every time she offered to read his tea leaves, it was all that he could do to keep from choking her.

Now here he was forced to sit and watch Beaver Teeth as she stirred a cauldron full of the elementary potion he consistently assigned to students on their first day. She had done it perfectly, of course, the very first time she had taken his class five years ago but one could never be too cautious when it came to potions. As he watched her, he contemplated changing her moniker to "Cage Mouth" or perhaps "Metal Face" as she now had her over-large teeth enclosed in some type of metallic restraints. Did she not know that a simple spell would do to set them right? He was amazed that she could close her mouth with those things in the way. He supposed it was more of that insufferable pride that Gryffindor seemed to breed into its inhabitants, and turned away, wondering why he had thought on it so much in the first place. She would always be "Beaver Teeth" to him.

He sat back down behind his desk, turning his attention to the ever-growing stack of parchment that needed grading. He swore they were getting dumber in each successive year. He fought the urge to sigh and masked it with a deepening of his perpetual scowl. Merlin, were only the stupidest of wizards breeding?

At least he had managed to rid himself of Weasley, Longbottom, and Potter after the finish of OWLS. He had had a dreadful, recurring dream in which he had been forced to lower his standards and accept the Boy Who (unfortunately) Lived into his NEWT level class, but surprisingly Albus had not forced the brainless wonder and its noble sidekick (who always had to come along) upon him. Longbottom was simply atrocious as a rule, melting cauldrons, exploding potions, and cowering in fear every time he, Snape, came near. He had not been sorry to see the back of him.

"Professor Snape?" Gods, he had forgotten all about Beaver Teeth. She strode purposefully towards the desk, a slight flush of achievement coloring her cheeks. He felt an indignant surge rise in his chest. How could she _know_ if she had brewed the potion correctly? He would put a stop to such dangerous overconfidence immediately.

"Yes, Ms. Granger?" He gave her a hard look and felt a beat of triumph when she blanched a little.

"I've finished my potion, Sir."

"Congratulations. Would you like a Lemon Drop?"  
She looked momentarily surprised. "What? I, oh, yes Sir that would be very-"

Snape cut her off curtly. "Then I suggest you take these lessons with Professor Dumbledore. In my class, you can save all of the ridiculous fanfare and simply turn your potion in."

She looked crestfallen, all traces of her earlier glow erased from her features. He wanted to smirk but didn't. She set the vial upon his desk, carefully avoiding his eyes. For a long moment, she stood there, hovering over him like a pesky, buck toothed fly. At last, he could stand it no longer. "What is it now, Ms. Granger? I, unlike you, am a busy man, not blessed with copious amounts of free time."

"Sir, what should I work on now?" She looked up and met his gaze. So, he was wrong. He hadn't broken her yet.

"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice calm and smooth. "Your potion for the night is completed. I suggest you return to your dormitory and figure that out for yourself. It's not up to me to play nursemaid for you." He turned back to his stack of essays.

He could see her steeling herself to speak again. Merlin, how he hated Gryffindors! "Sir, that was the most elementary potion in _Magical Drafts and Potions_."

"You are in my most elementary class," he pointed out.

"Sir," she protested. He was pleased to hear a slight note of desperate panic creeping into her voice as she continued her unwelcome diatribe. "Professor Dumbledore said that I would be receiving extra lessons so that I might be able to graduate with my class. If you follow your normal lesson plan during our meetings, I will never even come close to catching up!"

He looked her square in the eye. "Too bad."

Her mouth opened in shock, and he looked away in mild disgust. Those teeth were truly wretched. "Sir, Professor Dumbledore felt that with once weekly tutoring in each of my subjects plus a significant amount of independent study and research, I would be able to graduate with my peers!"

"Then I suggest you study independently."

"I have been! I can't do practicals with potions on my own, however. Please, Sir, give me another potion!"

He glared at her, waiting for her to drop her eyes, but she did not. At last he sighed. "Very well, skip on to page 50. All of the other potions between that which you just completed and the basic Healing Draught are woefully similar in both content and preparation. You have one hour. Be warned, it will be painfully obvious if you have not been studying."

She looked as though Christmas had come early, and headed to the store cupboards immediately. He frowned at the parchment before him on which every other word was either misspelled or scratched out. He had simply wanted to see how willing she was to work for it. He had hoped she would fail his test and that he would be able to end their lessons quickly each Monday and she would trudge along through potions like the rest of the army of dunderheads that traipsed through his classroom daily.

The only sounds to be heard for the next hour were the scratching of his quill, which grew more and more vicious as he became further agitated with the quality of the work before him, and the clanking of Beaver Teeth's wand against the sides of her cauldron. At last, she bottled her latest brew and brought it forward to him, this time impassively.

"Thank you, Ms. Granger," he said. "Dismissed."

She nodded to him, picked up her bags and headed towards the door, scurrying out into the corridors just as they all did after having been forced to associate with him for any length of time. He leaned back and stretched now that he was alone, as he preferred.

He supposed that if her work was quality, he could concede to her skipping through more potions which were similar, as she had tonight, and perhaps even allowing her a week's worth of assignments to brew in her own common room. His brow furrowed slightly as he considered this. He wasn't certain that Potter, Weasley, and Longbottom were able to be in the same room with his ingredients without causing disaster. He would have to think further on that.

Pushing his essays aside, he tested both of the potions she had created. At least he had one student who could do things correctly.

He stood up and paced the room for a moment. Gods, he hated teaching. He was little more that a baby sitter for first and second years, a feared object of scorn and contempt for third through fifth years, and a stupid teacher whom his "esteemed" sixth and seventh years knew far more than. He hated breaking up quarrels in the Slytherin common room, finding miscreants out at all hours of the day and night, and slipping in frog spawn as he walked down the halls.

Some of his more moronic colleagues sang the praises of having the privilege of watching these foul children grow up before their very eyes, but Severus had never been able to understand the merit of this preoccupation. They stayed the same; they just got bigger, stupider, meaner and uglier.

Unwilling to finish his grading for the night, and knowing he would regret it come morning, he extinguished the lights in his potions rooms, and headed for his private chambers where a bottle of Firewhisky awaited. He told himself that he needed out. If you had to drink to make it through the day…

Ignoring this thought, he poured himself a more healthy measure than normal, sat back in his armchair, and sipped, wishing the castle would be destroyed along with all of its inhabitants, including himself.

The drink warming him, he allowed a wry smile that was more of a smirk. He was certain that hell would be none other than the halls of Hogwarts.


	5. Track B, Chapter 1

TRACK CHANGE

TRACK B

CHAPTER 1

"What are you doing here?" he snarled at her from across the vast expanse of desk. In the days when Albus Dumbledore had occupied the office it had always been comfortable and teeming with warmth and life. He preferred things cold and sterile, as was reflected by his office. The heavy hunter green drapes had been pulled shut to block out all vestiges of the afternoon sunlight. His only furnishings were an ornate cabinet, his desk, and three chairs. One was soft leather, for himself, the other two were hard and wooden. He hoped any visitors that might be forced upon him would be dissuaded from staying too long if he made them as uncomfortable as was humanly possible.

He had tried removing the portraits from the wall. He knew that Dumbledore had enjoyed their company, but he, Severus Snape, couldn't stand their inane chatter and felt himself sickened at the thought that one day his image would be joining theirs. Mostly, though, he hated having Dumbledore look at him. It was a daily remainder of all that had changed and just how very much it had cost.

"You hired me." She was the same as always. Impertinent, stubborn, arrogant. In short, a Gryffindor through and through. "I am supposed to replace you as Potions Master."

"Replace?" he snorted. "That's a rather tall order. Perhaps you should start with 'attempt to teach in your stead.'" He glared at her, allowing himself a slight smirk. She knew him well, after all. It was in no small part because of her that he was even sitting here instead of rotting away in a cell in Azkaban after murdering Albus Dumbledore nearly five years previous. "You don't even have your Master title. Don't give yourself credit where it isn't due."

"You said it wouldn't matter. You said that any idiot could perform the task. I assumed that since you were able I would be as well." She raised an eyebrow at him, and his frown deepened further.

"Enough. I will not allow you to treat me with anything less than respect." He looked back at her, his eyes locking on hers for uncountable moments. "I know that I hired you," he began again at last, "I was simply wondering why you would apply for the job."

"I need work," she shrugged, but this time she did not quite meet his eye. She turned away from him to hide her discomfort and observed all of the portraits on the wall.

"Surely you have seen all of these before?" Snape asked, rising from behind his desk. He was irritated for no rational reason. He wanted her to look at him. "You and Potter and Weasley were always in trouble. I find it difficult to believe that you haven't managed to memorize every face and its frame."

"Don't talk about him," she whispered.

"I forgot," he lied.

Her eyes were haunted when she turned back to face him. "How could you? He died to save you. I see the sacrifice wasn't worth it. You're still as insufferable as you ever were." He could see tears forming, and he fought the almost tender urge to reach up and wipe them away.

"It was a very noble act," he allowed.

"It was my fault," she said, resuming her pacing. He wished now that he had never called her into his office. He had no particular wish to relive the demise of the Dark Lord during his waking hours when he knew that his dreams would be filled yet again with the horror of those final months. He reminded himself, however, that it was far better to relive them here with her than it would be to participate in endless solitary ruminations while spending his life in a cell in Azkaban.

"It was no one's fault."

"He didn't trust you. I told him he should."

He sighed, bracing himself for the endless circular discussion ahead. "I have never been trusted. It came with the territory."

"Dumbledore trusted you." She looked into his eyes again. Merlin, he hated hearing that name, it was worse than the Dark Lord's, though not because it inspired fear but because it consumed him with a raw and terrible guilt he felt would never even begin to heal. Albus had asked too much. Severus was a bitter, bitter man.

"That mattered to no one. Dumbledore trusted foolishly. It was one of his few gaping holes, may he rest in peace."

"He trusted you with the most important-"  
Snape cut across her. "If you would like to discuss the death of your dear husband, then we can talk. Otherwise, I have nothing to say." He waited for her to turn away, to cower in fear. Instead she took a deep breath.

"The two are most intimately related, Severus."

He cocked an eyebrow at the use of his familiar. "Indeed they are." That was all of the apology she was going to get.

"Minerva told me about the message she received from Fawkes shortly after Dumbledore's funeral. It had been written with specific instructions not to be delivered until after he had been buried in his final resting place. He said he was already dying, that the curse upon Marvolo's ring had contaminated his body and was slowly weakening him. He knew that by drinking the potion that night he would be beyond help, that he would have to die. He knew that Malfoy would be killed at Voldemort's hand should he fail in his mission to kill Dumbledore. Dumbledore knew Malfoy would be unable to complete the task, so he charged you to do it for him. You made the vow with Narcissa and, when the time came, you had the courage to do what none of the rest of us ever could have." She nodded slightly towards him. "The hardest part was convincing Ron and Harry. They had always held such a low opinion of you, despite Dumbledore's reassurances to Harry. Harry didn't understand that Dumbledore knew his time had run out, that he would forever more be a liability to the Order rather than an asset. They wanted to know why Dumbledore had never revealed his plans to anyone. I told them I was certain that Dumbledore felt someone would try to stop him. I know Harry would have."

"I thank you for your confidence." He nodded to her this time.

"I never thought you were terrible. Well, from the time when Dumbledore died until I was told of the missive I did, but never before that and never since. I knew how valuable you were to the Order. I know how much it has cost you."

He looked her in the eye again. "No one could know."

"Perhaps not," she acquiesced. "I won't pretend I understand, but I sympathize."

"Pity is worse than loathing," he told her in a hollow, ringing voice.

"I don't pity you," she snapped. "I'm sorry you had to go through what you did, but I don't pity you. It was your choice to become a Death Eater in the first place, just as it was your choice to risk everything to turn spy for the Order."

An uncomfortable silence rang through the room. At last, Snape spoke again. "I thought that you wanted to discuss Mr. Weasley's unfortunate demise?"

"I'm getting to that," she said, now sounding as tired and worn as she looked. "I finally convinced the two of them that you were not the enemy. We were looking for the Horcruxes still, you understand, and not having much luck. Dumbledore had told Harry a fair bit in the year before, well, you know what happened, but it was cryptic and we had never really been privy to all of the information. We needed someone like you to help us, someone who understood Voldemort. We didn't even know where to look. I know Harry would have rather died than accept help from you, but it was actually Ron who convinced him in the end. Ron and I didn't mind the danger involved, you understand, just the futility of going about it in the way Harry wanted to. It was as though he hoped we would simply run into a Horcrux while walking along the roads of Britain."

She stopped to catch her breath, and he took over. "I can't pretend I wanted to help."

"I knew you would if you were truly innocent. I knew you would want to feel as though you were absolving some of your sins."

He grunted low in his throat at her, but did not reply. He didn't want her to know just how very right she was in her sentiment.

"I was so grateful for the help you offered. We would have never known where to begin without you. I didn't understand much of the magic involved. We were too young, too inexperienced, too…"

"Stupid?" Snape offered maliciously. She ignored him.

"Once we had them all, we knew that it was time. We went to headquarters and called a meeting. You were there. I was amazed at how stoic you were, how you avoided all of the looks and whispers."

"I told you, I want none of your pity. I have been whispered about all of my life. It was nothing new or even noteworthy. Incidentally, when were you and he bonded?"

"At Bill and Fleur's wedding. We wanted to get it done in case, well, I suppose it was rather foolish now. You can't imagine how guilty I feel sometimes. I'm not sure I ever even truly loved him that way."

"If there's anything I can imagine," he said gravely, "it's guilt."

She looked at him in understanding, then continued. "So, as you know, plans were finalized, things put into motion. We arrived at the Riddle house, and Harry took out the final Horcrux, the snake. We knew he could die then. It was agreed that you would fight on the Death Eater's side and then switch over in the midst of battle."

"I know," he said. "I was there."

"We were both there, Severus." She paused a moment, clearing her throat. "Things weren't going well. Harry felt he had to lead the charge. He never grew out of playing the hero. We were losing. I hoped you truly would turn tail."

"You doubted me? After-"

It was her turn to cut in on him. "Not really, I just hoped I wasn't wrong about you. I hoped that I had never been wrong about you." A slight blush crept into her cheeks, and she continued. "At last I saw you jump in to join us. The Death Eaters were ganging up on you. Undoubtedly, they knew how powerful you were. They wanted to stop you before you could destroy them. I told Ron to help you." He voice broke, and she did not continue.

"I see no reason that it is your fault Mr. Weasley died fighting by my side, Hermione." Snape spoke softly, trying to impart emotion into a voice he had trained for a lifetime to remain apathetic.

"I told him to help you. I should have done it myself."

"You couldn't have known."

"If I had stepped in, it wouldn't have happened."

"No," Snape agreed. "You would be dead instead."

She nodded. "I know." Tears began to fall down her face, and she wiped them away with her sleeve. "You bastard," she said softly. "I swore I wouldn't let you see me cry again."

She jumped up from the chair and pelted out of the room as fast as her legs could carry her, the hair she had cut short after the loss of her husband, Ron Weasley, bobbing as she ran. Snape let her go. He had only a fleeting desire to stop her, and no need to deal with an overly emotional woman.

He sat back down at his desk, but was unable to settle to anything. He knew that he had her to thank for his continued chance at life. Had she not been able to convince the Boy Who (again and again and again) Lived and the Boy Who Died that he was trustworthy, his usefulness to the Order would have been nil, all of the life he had wasted would have been for naught.

He had hired her to thank her, but had been surprised when she actually took the job. She was not truly qualified, but he knew that she was more than adequate for the position. Given their personal history, however, he had found it difficult to believe that she would return to him. He had expected her to come teach in the previous couple of years, while Minerva had been Headmistress. He knew she had been invited then and had declined. He wondered what had changed when the previous position would have, undoubtedly been emotionally easier on her. He decided that she must, like himself, be a glutton for punishment.

It had been three years since Weasley had died, three years since he had last seen her. She looked older now, not in a physical sense but in an intangible way. She had cut that infernal hair short, a style of which he was as fond as he could be of anything. It made her look neat and tidy, and made her face ageless and timeless. She could have been fifteen or thirty.

"Stop," he admonished himself firmly. "Just stop, right now." He took a sip of cool water from a glass he conjured and ran his fingers through his hair. Perhaps it was time for bed.

He took the stairs at a brisk walk, not waiting for them to propel him upward. This was just a small, half set that led to a suite of rooms just above the Head's office. At first he had been loathe to leave what he had always considered his dungeon, but upon seeing his new apartment, he was thrilled with his choice. It was exquisite, in sharp contrast to the office below, for he knew he needn't worry about visitors lingering here.

Sighing, he sat down on his couch and opened a book. It was going to be a long year.


	6. Track B, Chapter 2

TRACK B

CHAPTER 2

He dwelled in darkness. There were memories, memories of terrible things, things that he had seen, things that he had done. There had been light once, of that he was most certain. Now, though there was a vast, empty nothingness.

He held her close as they lay together in their bed, the sun having long ago sunk low and the moon shining high in the sky. The night air had been cold with the windows open, and she had cheerfully shut them before they had clambered into bed. As always, she had snuggled against him and quickly fallen asleep. He wasn't sure how he felt about this. He wondered why she had no dreams, why she had no guilt.

He didn't begrudge her peace, her sanity; he merely was unable to understand it. It had been a long time since he had felt at peace with anything. Sometimes, he wondered if he was hurting her by being with her. Sometimes, he almost left her, the same way he had left her shortly after Dumbledore's death.

She was timeless, perfect. She was everything he had once wanted for himself, and everything that he now knew he could never be. It seemed that all of his demons had at last come home to roost. He didn't know for how much longer he could bear it.

He had lost everything: his parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, other friends, and Ron. Hermione was little more than a distant memory of a past he wanted nothing more than to forget, though he knew Ginny kept in close contact with her brother's widow. He had become a murderer of sorts at age eleven, killed a Basilisk and destroyed a piece of Voldemort's soul at age twelve, battled dementors at thirteen, watched Voldemort rise again at fourteen, suffered one of the worst years of his life and once again thwarted Voldemort at fifteen, learned about he Horcruxes and begun his search at sixteen, destroyed the rest of Voldemort's soul at seventeen, and at last had come full circle by murdering again at eighteen.

He found it odd that people had begun celebrating after he had finished Voldemort. He himself could find little cheer in what he had done. Instead, the emptiness within him seemed to have grown. His whole life had been about that one defining moment, and when Voldemort had fallen to the ground, lifeless and without a soul something inside of Harry seemed to have died as well.

Even now, nearly three years later, he was still filled with that strange, hollow emptiness. He felt as though his life no longer had any purpose. He had been born to destroy Voldemort.

Ginny said that he was ridiculous, that there was far more for him to live for, and that now he was free to do just that, free to live. He had trouble believing it. He just couldn't bring himself to be happy. It would be like betraying all those who had sacrificed themselves in order for him to be able to fulfill his mission, to serve his purpose.

Ginny wanted him to be happy. She tried her hardest, he knew, to make him smile. He assured her that he was happier with her than he could ever be with anyone else. He knew he would never smile again. He sighed into the darkness and gripped her tighter.

***

She apparated to the Riddle House and walked around the grounds, thinking about everything that had changed since that day nearly three years ago. It had taken the Ministry over two years to finish their investigation of the battle sight and deem the area safe. It had been opened to the public only three months ago, and this was her first time visiting. She had been putting it off for some reason she couldn't really understand. Cowardice, she supposed.

Slowly, she circled through the gardens, smiling greetings at others as she passed them. Unlike Harry, she was not well known to the Wizarding World at large by sight alone, and she gave thanks for that simple blessing everyday. She didn't wonder that he had turned inside of himself and seldom left the house. She knew that Ginny was hurting, but the red head was holding out hope for her long time boyfriend.

She continued walking, thinking on all that had been and wishing it could have been different. She wished she and Harry had never lost touch, wished Ron had never had to die, wished life had given her an easy time. Above all though, she wished that she and Ron had never married.

She knew that Ron had loved her in a way that she would have never been able to love him, no matter how long they had had together. They had rushed into their union, something telling her that it had to happen, that she had to give him at least that. Somehow, she had known it would never have to last.

Her destination awaited her ahead. She walked towards a set of small gold paving stones that had been arranged on the veranda as memoirs to all of those who had fallen fighting against Voldemort. Ron's name was predictably in the last row, as the stones had been arranged alphabetically.

She stood in quiet reflection for a moment before sinking slowly to her knees and tracing the engraved name with her fingertips.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and she was. For more than he had ever known.


	7. Track B, Chapter 3

TRACK B

CHAPTER 3

What had she gotten herself into? It was no wonder that Severus had always been such a git when teaching. The students were absolutely appalling. She could only be thankful that she didn't have Head of House duties to attend to as well.

She ran herself a warm bath and stepped into the sunken tub, hoping that the warm water would sooth away the headache the was dully forming in the base of her neck.

She hadn't been able to grab their attention yet, no matter what she tried. She couldn't be cold and cruel the way Snape had always been, nor could she command the attention of her students the way Professor McGonagall had always been able to. They wouldn't follow her directions, chattered while they were supposed to be working, and caused general mayhem at every turn. There had been a melted cauldron, unexplained burns, and several odd happenings as the result of potions spills. Worst of all had been the petrified student. She didn't even know how that had happened. She wasn't certain that she wanted to.

Suddenly a chiming sound rang through the bathroom. She jumped, nearly coming out of the bath, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. She knew who it was.

She couldn't understand how she knew. Hell, she couldn't even pinpoint her feelings on the subject. She felt as though she were choking. Meanwhile, the chime rang again.

She jumped out of the tub, wrapping her hair in a thick towel and throwing a long, heavy dressing gown around herself. She tightened the sash until it felt as though it were squeezing her in half, checked in the mirror that nothing was hanging out that shouldn't be and headed for the doors, lowering her wards as she went.

"May I come in?" He was standing there as though it were natural, as though he belonged. They had been his rooms, she remembered.

She shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. "I suppose."

He rubbed his hands together briskly, and then rocked back and forth on his heels as though they were in a stateroom on an ocean liner. "Are you settling in?"

She looked around at her rooms. She had finished decorating them only yesterday and felt comfortable with her color scheme. "I suppose."

"The decorating is not what I had expected."

"What were you looking for? Black? I suppose you think that I should still be in mourning?" A note of irritation was edging its way into her voice.

"Actually, I would have though scarlet and gold."

"I like pastels better. Besides, school was a long time ago. I'm an adult now." She turned away from him and stepped into the sitting room, settling herself on a cream colored overstuffed couch. "Can I do something for you?"

"May I?" he asked, gesturing towards a butter colored arm chair. She nodded, and he sat, pointing his wand at the fireplace so that it began crackling merrily. "I find these rooms difficult to heat." They both stared into the fire for a long time, each lost in their own thoughts. "How has your first week been?"

"You haven't heard?" She stared at him in disbelief.

"Idle chatter is often only that."

"It will get better," she said optimistically.

"Don't be so sure." He cocked his eyebrows at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Didn't we have this conversation recently?" She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly to her as though shielding herself from him.

"You know what I mean. I allowed you to avoid the topic during our last interaction. This time, I would like an answer. Why have you come now when you never would at Minerva McGonagall's request? Has it something to do with me?"

"Don't you think that that might be a bit conceited?" She frowned at him. "How could I possibly answer that question? Let's just say I didn't want to teach with you. I didn't want to have to have you as my mentor. At least I don't have to spend much time with you as Headmaster"

"You would rather have the ever-jovial Flitwick?"

"At least I can be around him without-" she stopped, staring into the fire to avoid talking again.

"Without what?" Snape prompted. He stood up from his chair and sat down on the end of the sofa she wasn't occupying.

"Get out," she said.

He remained sitting. "What's the matter? Do you find it hard to live with what you did? Is it difficult to think of the way in which you betrayed him? Do you lay awake at night and remember everything? Do you hate yourself?"

"Out," she repeated. "Get out!"

"In time, Ms. Granger. In time."

"Mrs. Weasley."

"Come now, we both know that you never were."

"Please, Severus. Please don't." She was pleading with him again. "I try not to think about it."

"Why did you not keep in contact?"

She looked up at him with sad, haunted eyes. "Would you have replied to my letters if I had?"

He thought for a moment. "No, I supposed not."

"Then what was the point? Why should I add to my guilt?"

He reached out and touched her arm and she didn't move away. "What's done is done, Hermione. You can't change the past."

"I don't know that I want to." She leaned into his arm, and though she did not offer any further contact she didn't break it. She waved her wand to extinguish all of the candles and left only the fire glowing in the hearth.

"Do you want me to stay?" He moved closer to her, touching his lips softly to hers.

"I don't know," she whispered weakly.

He pulled her closer to him, deepening his kiss. "I don't want to leave Hermione. It's been a long time."

"You mean you haven't since…"

"No, not since you."

She lowered her head shyly. "Nor have I."

It began innocuously enough. They had simply had a cup of coffee following one of the deathly dull Order meetings. Ron and Harry had abandoned her, as was usual, in favor of the local pub. Even then, she had realized far too late that caring was not the same thing as love.

She had always been so cool and logical. Her life had been ruled by rationality, her actions by calculation. It seemed, though, that in that span between leaving Hogwarts following the death of Dumbledore, and the fall of Voldemort nearly two years later that who she was had abandoned her completely.

She had changed in a way that even now she looked back upon sourly. Marrying Ron in the first place had been a rash and unnecessary act. They had pushed each other toward it, trying to somehow find peace in the knowledge that, if nothing else, each would always be there for the other. She knew now that she had never, ever been in love with him. Of course she had loved him, but it had been in so platonic away that their bonding had been ludicrous. She had been with him only once after their marriage, and that coupling had been dreadful. She had felt nothing at all.

It hadn't been like that with Severus. She remembered how, after that night they had spent together she had tried to convince herself that he had perhaps Imperioused her or slipped something in her coffee. Even then, though, she knew that none of this was true. Her actions had been of her own accord. She had actually wanted him. If not him, then something, something that Ron could never give her.

It had been only once. Once, and yet it had been a memory that had haunted her not only because of her betrayal but because of what she had found within herself when she had been with Severus. She had never told Ron, but had intended to after all was said and done, after the battle. She had wanted to annul their bonding. That, of course had become unnecessary. She wondered now if her guilt was that much greater because he had never known.

She had avoided Severus Snape ever since then. She had turned down the teaching positions offered her lest he become her mentor. He made her feel weak and foolish. He made her something she wasn't. She had never intended to become an adulteress. She had also never intended to enter willingly into a loveless marriage.

She had told Severus that her room was done in pastels because she was no longer a child. That wasn't entirely the truth. She had avoided the traditional colors of her house because she no longer truly felt that she was a Gryffindor. Something inside of her had changed, and she had trouble classifying herself as either brave or noble. If she had been, she would not be sitting in the position she was presently in. She would not be consumed by guilt for feeling a happiness that she felt she could never deserve whenever she was in the presence of the man beside her.

"I don't know if I can, Severus." Her voice sounded tiny and meek to her. "My God," she whispered aloud, "what's happened to me?"

"I'm not asking you to love me, Hermione."

"It's wrong."

"Not anymore. He is gone." Severus looked into her eyes, trying to read her. "Are we supposed to sublimate everything we want, everything we feel, because of how your dead husband might react?" He paused for a moment. "You didn't seem to care when he was alive."

"That isn't true. Take it back."

"I will not." He stood up to leave. "It's obvious you are too immature to handle this."

"Wait," she called out to him as he stepped out of the sitting room and into the foyer. "Stay," she said. "Please." She didn't know that she wanted to be with him, but somehow, just as when she had been unfaithful with the same man during her marriage with Ron, she couldn't face another moment of being alone.


	8. Track C, Chapter 1

TRACK CHANGE

TRACK C

CHAPTER 1

Hermione Snape. The name still took some getting used to. No matter how she rolled it over in her head, it still seemed foreign, unnatural. Almost two months had passed since their union, and, even now, it didn't seem a part of her.

She looked around their rooms, still unable to believe that she had been coerced by the Ministry into having to live here of all places and with him of all people. She supposed that it was better than the alternative.

Nothing in the past two months had changed her mind that the Ministry's Marriage Act had been anything but an absurd and desperate measure made by a man falling from favor and grasping at the last fleeting threads of hope that something he did might make some kind of a difference in that way that he was perceived. It had made a difference, all right. People everywhere were debating on both sides of the issue, some of them calling for Fudge's head on a platter, others asking to be free to take even more liberties, such as the ability to legally take muggleborns as slaves.

She thought it ludicrous that the establishment saw her and others like her as little more than mindless breeding machines needing to be doled out across the Wizarding World at large, with no thought as all being given to their own personal feelings on a very personal matter. She had grown up believing that marriage was made for the sake of love, not for the sake of convenience. She thought that that modicum of thinking had died out with the dark ages.

It hadn't supposed to be like this. The Ministry had started making light references to the topic as the war had still been winding down. Voldemort had still been on the loose, but had been growing more desperate by the day, his followers trying to turn tail and save themselves, the Order closing in on his ranks. They had all known that it wouldn't be long.

The topic of the Marriage Act had first been brought to her attention by Molly Weasley. She remembered how horrified and even violated she had felt upon hearing the news. She remembered thinking, hoping actually, that even the Ministry in all of its idiocy couldn't possibly really put this through. She had tried assuring herself that it was little more than smoke and mirrors, a diversion to distract the attention of the populace from the spectacularly terrible mess that their government had made of everything over the past couple of years. She had assured herself that, in due time, it would all pass and that she would never be affected by it.

It hadn't been long, however, before it had become painfully obvious that the Ministry was not simply going to step back from this. They championed the idea as the soundest and greatest they had ever come up with, and instead of backing off pushed it through with a ferocity Hermione hadn't thought that they had had in them.

It had been arranged, then, that she would marry Ron Weasley, for their union would fall under the guidelines of the act. She hadn't been certain about how to feel in regard to this. It was not that she didn't enjoy Ron's company or didn't care about him. The way that she felt was to the contrary, in fact. She had simply never seen herself spending the rest of her life with him. Shortly, however, all of that had been rendered moot. Ron had died.

He had been killed trying to help Snape, who had fallen under heavy attack during the final battle. Hermione still had trouble believing that Ron had sacrificed himself in order to save one of the people he had hated most in the world. She had always thought he would be lost to them while trying to protect Harry.

She had been at a loss after this. She didn't know what she wanted or how she felt. She hadn't wanted to end up with a Death Eater or worse, Draco Malfoy, for whom his father Lucius had petitioned for her hand. Dumbledore had offered a horrible alternative: Severus Snape.

So, here she was, finishing her seventh year (those students who had dropped out because of the war effort had been invited back so that they could earn their diploma a year later than they otherwise would have). She was miserable.

She would have liked to say that she had tried being nice and that he had never reciprocated, but she knew that this would be a lie. True, he had shown her no affection other than his basic protection of her from Lucius and Draco, both of whom were incensed, but she had done little to warrant it. She did her best not to have to talk with him or even be near him. She tried to pretend that none of this had happened. She wanted to convince herself that she wasn't really the Potions Master's wife.

She remembered their wedding night. He had shown her the suite of rooms which had been prepared for her to move into following their union. Then he had told her that she looked like Medusa with her hair in its wild, frizzy curls flying everywhere. She had ignored him at the time, but while in Hogsmeade last week had had it cut short. She didn't know if she wanted to please him, or if he had just managed to finally bring to her attention just how bad the look had been on her. Either way, she now had a much easier time managing her morning grooming.

So she sat, alone, reading a book from his shelves and trying to concentrate on the words rather than on her increasing desperation and loneliness. Though still allowed in Gryffindor tower, she felt like an outsider whenever she traipsed up there. The rooms she lived in were not home. Gryffindor was home, but it wasn't hers anymore.

The door creaked open and he came billowing through, his face contorted in rage. She had been surprised at just how expressive he could be when away from the public view.

"What's the matter?"

"Do you really, really have to ask?" he snarled at her.

Not really, no. "Is it Lucius again?" She chanced another glance at him, and saw that he was still just as furious as he had been upon entering.

"I received another threat from him today. It seems that now he is trying to force through an amendment to the Marriage Act."

"An amendment?" She frowned. Nothing that had anything to do with the Act could possibly bode well for her or for their situation.

Snape (she just couldn't think of him in any other way) took a deep breath and said, "The passing of the amendment would be very unpleasant. It states that we must have children."

She bit her lower lip thoughtfully. "The original Act already decreed that we were supposed to conceive a child. You said that there were ways around that, potions and spells that we could use to look as though we were trying unsuccessfully. You said it would be of no consequence." She glared at him accusingly but he did not quail.

"Well," he said with a hint of acid in his voice, "by the terms of the original Act it was of no consequence. Lucius, however, wishes the Act to be amended so that any muggleborn witch not impregnated within one year of her union with a pureblood wizard will be forced to annul her union with that wizard and will be bonded with another man in hopes that their marriage will be fertile."

"That," said Hermione firmly, "is sick."

Snape looked at her with the closest thing to compassion she felt he could muster. "I know." He paced the room for a moment before speaking again. "I have felt wronged by the entire Act, but not nearly as wronged as you should. Dumbledore and others are fighting against both the Act itself and this amendment, but Lucius is a powerful, well-connected man. What he wants he often gets."

She nodded, noting the twinge of bitterness in his voice. It seemed unreal to her that Lucius's galleons had allowed him to escape punishment time and time again.

"You do understand," said Snape, "that in order to escape Mr. Malfoy should the Act remain in place, I will have to impregnate you with my child within the next ten months." He looked disgusted with the thought. For some reason, his glare made her feel more than a little insulted.

She felt his hand squeeze her shoulder and fought the urge to pull away. She felt as though her whole world were collapsing around her. As if the whole thing hadn't been bad enough already…

"Merlin help me," she whispered to the uncomfortable, suffocating silence that had filled the room.

Snape nodded in agreement. "Indeed."


	9. Track C, Chapter 2

TRACK C

CHAPTER 2

"Why did you come back?" Ginny leaned back harder into his legs and looked up at his green eyes, her gaze resting for a brief moment on his scar. He felt a twinge of annoyance; he hated people ogling his forehead as though it were a peculiar museum exhibit rather than a part of him. A part of him? Hell, anymore it felt like _was _him.

"What do you mean? I came back to finish school." He looked at her in annoyance, trying to keep the anger out of his voice, trying not to hurt her again as he had so many times in the past months. Ever since he had cast the final curse upon Voldemort, he seemed unable to control his temper. A hot blade of anger seemed to go knifing through him with only the slightest pit of provocation.

"You didn't have to." Ginny spoke quietly, as though slightly afraid to agitate him. The softness of her voice hurt him more than he could say. She had been so brave, so strong. To see fear in her eyes when she looked upon him seemed almost other worldly. He looked away, staring into the flickering fire, watching logs snap and smoke curl.

He didn't know how to answer her, so he remained silent, stroking her long red hair, lost in reflection. She was right, of course. There had been no reason at all for him to come back, no reason to subject himself to the daily agony he felt when he woke up in a dormitory full of strangers each morning (Ron, Neville, and Dean had been lost in the war; Seamus had not returned to graduate), no reason to feel the pain as he sat through his lessons, Ginny between he and Hermione instead of Ron. He was a hero. He had vanquished Voldemort yet again, and this time the results would be lasting. He would never want for anything so long as he lived. His fame would carry him through.

Strangely, this thought had done nothing at all to comfort him. To the contrary, it made him feel almost sick to his stomach. To accept it would mean that everything had forever changed. It would mean that the war was well and truly over, that Ron and countless other friends were dead, that Voldemort was gone, and that his purpose for living had died by the evil wizard's side.

He could hardly sleep at night; the ominous absence of Ron's perpetual snores seemed to echo through his dormitory. He would lay awake, tossing and turning, cold sweat running down his body, his mind racing. At last he would fall into a fitful sleep and awake in the morning no more rested than he had been before crawling into bed. He knew he should go to Madame Mayes (Madame Pompfrey had been killed in the war) and request a dreamless sleep potion, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He felt that he would be betraying all of those who had sacrificed themselves for him by ending the pain, even if the respite was only temporary and fleeting.

He should leave. He knew that wasn't what she had been asking of him, knew that it was not what she wanted. He should pack his trunk and go, leave all vestiges of his childhood behind and move on, carrying his pain with him and no longer darkening the lives of those who, like he, had been left behind. He should, but he would not.

He wanted to stay, wanted to hold on, wanted to remain a child forever even though everything had changed and he never could be again. He wanted to fool himself, if only for a little longer.

He reached down and squeezed Ginny's shoulder, planting a soft kiss on the top of her head. Even now, his stomach lurched in guilt before he remembered that Ron was no longer able to pointedly ignore his displays of affection for Ginny.

He stared into the fire once more, lost in memories that he wouldn't allow to let go, a lone tear sliding down his cheek and falling into the long, loose strands of Ginny's hair.

***

He had died not far from here. She stopped her stroll around the lake and stood still, letting the cool wet breeze float over her, calming her. There was no marker, no memorial. All that she had left to tell her were the terrible memories and an eerie feeling of quiet that she felt whenever she came here.

She was silent, hardly daring to breath in the calm stillness. There was something about this place that she found comfort in, something that she could almost bring herself to enjoy if such a thing were possible. Here, she felt at peace and knew that he must surely be too. Here, she wasn't afraid to be alone, for in this place she could never ever be. She knew he lingered.

She wondered what he would have felt about the Ministry's latest blunder, and then almost laughed to herself. He wouldn't have cared. For him, it would have been an excuse for a shag.

Sometimes, she regretted that she had never given in to him in that regard. Her regrets weren't for herself, though, but for him. It had seemed so important to him, but she, of course, had never felt so connected with him. He had been her best friend, not always a good friend, but always there, solidly, stubbornly, there. The fact that he would never again be there made her ache inside as nothing else could.

She had no one. She and Harry no longer spoke more than to exchange pleasantries. She wondered if she was too much of a reminder for him, if she was a catalyst for all of the memories that would never allow his deep wounds to heal. It hurt her to be estranged from him, but she would allow him to approach her when he was ready. For now, this place was her catharsis.

She sank down to the ground and stared across the water as the sun began to sink low on the horizon. The surface of the lake was bathed in color, reflecting the sky above. She smiled to herself and wished that she never had to leave, that she never had to return to the dungeon that had become her home and to the man that had become the axis of her life.

She couldn't say she loved him. They were too different and there was too much pain to separate them. Even so, she cared about him, she supposed. She wished that they could be a bit closer as they were bound to bear a child thus forever connecting their lives, not matter if the Marriage Act was annulled or not, but she understood that she was nothing more than an inconvenience to him and that any kind of love, even the most platonic, was not what he wanted.

Sighing, she stood up, brushing pine needles off of her backside as she did so. The sun was gone now, only a slight, gloomy vestige of light remaining. The moon was rising, stars coming out. She began to walk along the path again, drained from her afternoon reflection.

She hurried as she remembered her husband's warning concerning her meandering about alone in the dark when Lucius Malfoy was so desperate to get his hands on her. Her breathing quickened, her heart racing. She hadn't meant for it to last so long.

She took the castle steps two at a time, practically charging through the front doors and slamming them shut behind her. It was still well before curfew, but she glanced around furtively, hoping that he would not see her, that he would not know that she had been out against her express wishes.

She headed quickly for their dungeon rooms, muttering the password to the random portrait that guarded their domain and jumping inside to land in the hallway. He was sitting in front of the fire, absorbed in a book. She smiled slightly to herself as she observed the innocent serenity that seemed to radiate from him.

She let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. Here, with him, she was safe.


	10. Track C, Chapter 3

TRACK C

CHAPTER 3

He sat in his leather armchair, staring into the fire instead of reading the heavy book he held in his pale, spidery hands. He couldn't quite bring himself to believe the depths of stupidity to which the Ministry would stoop. Having to marry Hermione Granger had been bad enough, but having to conceive a child with the girl (he couldn't bring himself to see her as a woman) was unthinkable. He wondered if Madame Mayes knew anything about artificial insemination, and his lip curled slightly as he envisioned Hermione working out which disgusted her more: having him refuse to be with her sexually (what's wrong with me, she would wonder even through her secret relief) and impregnate her in the most sterile and medical way possible, or having to be with him sexually in order to avoid Draco Malfoy.

Snape sighed, thinking he would discuss his options with Dumbledore during one of the bi-weekly meetings the meddling fool insisted upon. The old coot wanted to insure that he, Severus, was not harming the girl in any way, shape, or form. Snape found this amusing in a twisted sense of the word. What if he did treat her like shit? Not that he did, but what would Dumbledore do about it? Annul their marriage so that she could be with Malfoy and everything that both him and his wife (he felt a certain sourness wash over him as he considered the word) had sacrificed would be for nothing? The whole thing was ludicrous.

He stood up and made a circuit of his suite, looking into her rooms to see if she had come home for the evening. He didn't know why he even bothered looking; he didn't secretly yearn for her company. The light was on in her room, the door, unusually, standing halfway open. He walked towards it, his curiosity piqued. Hermione never, ever left her door open. Ever.

He looked around the door and peered into the room, wondering what he would find when he did, a slight shiver of fear and exhilaration quivering in his stomach. He blinked when he looked inside.

There was nothing sinister about the scene before him. Hermione lay curled on her side, her short hair mussed slightly on one side against her pillow, a book open beside her. Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and even. On her lips was a slight smile. He found himself glad that her dreams were obviously preferable to his own.

She looked so vulnerable and innocent lying there in her flannel pajamas. He tiptoed into the room, moving the book off of the comforter, marking her place, and setting it on the cherry nightstand beside her bed. He reached down to the foot of her bed and pulled the folded chenille throw over her sleeping form. She stirred slightly but did not wake. Walking out of the room, he extinguished the lights and shut her door firmly.

Standing out in the hall, he leaned against the wall, running his fingers through his greasy hair. Nothing he did ever seemed to help; it remained steadfastly disgusting. He wondered, not for the first time, what it must be like for her to have to be here. He was certain she blamed him for Weasley's death. If not for him, her red-headed imbecile would still be breathing. They would probably be snogging right now.

He felt his stomach clench in what he could only term as jealous anger at the thought. What had gotten into him? What did he care about her past? He doubted that there was much of one, in any case. He snorted at this thought and pulled himself off the wall, leaving her rooms behind and settling once again in his chair before the fire, this time with a full glass of Firewhisky in his hand.

Things weren't looking good for him. He had never wanted a child. It was bad enough having to look after the legions of morons that made their way through his dungeon doors year after year, melting cauldrons and making fools of themselves. He hated them almost as much as he hated teaching. He wondered idly how many of them he had managed to reach over the years and found himself growing more and more depressed. He took a long draught from his cup, the drink within hardly even burning his throat anymore. One could not have spent as much time as he had being a double agent without developing a fondness for drink and an incredible tolerance for anything that helped to ease the pain.

If he had to be honest, he hated himself. He couldn't imagine bringing a child into the world. How could he love something the way a parent was supposed to love a child? As a child, he had never known love himself. He had no idea how to be a parent.

Hermione, on the other hand, he could see as a mother. He could see her changing diapers and burping a screaming infant. He supposed this was simply because she was female. He wondered if she even wanted to be a mother, and then decided that none of it mattered very much if the ministry had their way.

Much as he was loathe to the idea of bringing a child into the world by way of his loveless sham of a marriage, he simply couldn't allow himself to turn Hermione over to Draco Malfoy. He might as well murder the girl after violating and brutalizing her.

He sighed again (it was getting to be a habit) and drank deeply once more.


	11. Track A, Chapter 4

TRACK CHANGE

TRACK A

CHAPTER 4

He felt his breath catch as he walked towards her across the common room. His heart was beating so hard in his chest; he feared that she would hear it as he approached. He tried to swallow a lump that seemed to have permanently lodged itself in the back of his throat and found that he couldn't. He hoped that she wouldn't see him sweating.

Five years had passed, and he had never forgotten her. True, she hadn't lived in the forefront of his mind but, instead, had been exiled to the furthest reaches of his consciousness, to the inner depths of his heart. He felt that the fact that he had never been able to excise her had to mean something.

Now she was back, and he didn't quite know what to do. He had offered his hand in friendship immediately, almost as though his inner self was wishing to make up for lost time. They had bonded and had fast become friends, far better friends than they had been before she had left, in fact. She was slowly becoming everything to him.

"Hermione?" The brunette girl looked up from her conversation with Parvati Patil and smiled at him, careful to keep her lips closed and hide the metal objects she had told him were called "braces".

"Hi, Ron. Want to join us?" She scooted over a little and patted an empty spot on the sofa.

Ron blushed, shuffling his feet slightly and looking into the carpet. "Um, no, thanks. When you get a minute could you, ah, help me with my essay?" He felt the blood rising in his face and cursed himself. Why must he always blush?

She didn't seem to notice. "Sure," she said brightly. "I'll be there in a minute." She turned back to Parvati, and the two continued chatting about, of all things, Professor Snape.

Ron tuned them out and headed for a more secluded corner of the common room where he could watch Hermione unnoticed by his fellow Gryffindors. He couldn't help but be impressed by the change in her that six weeks at Hogwarts had wrought. Just two weeks ago, she had finished sitting the equivalent of her first year exams and had been promoted to second year work. She had explained that the first year was mostly variations on the basics, according to the Professors, and therefore was going to be the easiest for her to quickly work her way through. She had also confided in him that she had, as a first year, read through all of the required books and practiced much of the practical work. She had supposed that, having been hidden away for the past five years, those memories had never really become dull with age. She had told him that she felt as though it were only yesterday that she set her schoolbooks down.

He knew, though, that she was worried about the second year work. She had never seen the materials before, and was eager to get started. According to her, McGonagall estimated that the second year work would require a minimum of ten weeks of intensive study. He was surprised that she wasn't nose deep in a book right now, or off in a private tutoring session. He shuddered when he thought about taking private lessons with Snape. She swore to him again and again that she truly didn't mind, but he was incredulous. He supposed it was brain damage from the memory charm.

She was making friends too. At first he had been a little jealous when she had blown him off one night to chat with Lavender and Parvati, but then he had remembered how shy and terrified she had been after coming back and was actually happy for her. He shook his head, wondering when he had stopped being totally shallow.

"Hey." She sat down next to him and grinned.

He felt himself blush again. "Hey."

"Where's Harry?"

He looked away from her and stared at his hands instead. "I don't know. In his room, I guess."

She sighed, pushing a wayward chunk of bangs out of her eyes. "Does he have a problem with me?"

"No," Ron said quietly.

"How come he's always with you except when I come around?" she asked shrewdly.

"Dunno," Ron said loyally, examining his shoes and wishing she would just look over his essay and that they could chat about something more pleasant.

"If I did something wrong," she plowed on, "I just want to know so I can apologize." She gazed at him expectantly.

"It's not you, okay? He just…I don't know. He's been weird ever since the end of our third year." He looked down at his shoes again, noticing how they were cracking near the soles.

"What happened?" Her face was inscrutable, her voice warm with concern but at the same time welling with a ripe curiosity.

"It's sort of a long story," he evaded feebly.

"Well, give me your essay to check over and you can tell me about it."

He mumbled something that even he didn't understand about talking too much as he reached into his bag and pulled out a roll of parchment concerning flesh eating plants that he passed into her eager hands.

He wondered why he couldn't seem to help himself telling her everything. He wanted to impress her, true, but there was more to it than that. Something about their talks was like therapy to him. It was nice to be able to tell someone without having them constantly remind you how much harder their part in the whole ordeal had been. He felt like mentally slapping himself for the disloyalty of the last thought, but shrugged the feeling away. He had been there, always, after all.

He had told her all about the Sorcerer's Stone in their first year: the way they had, luckily, had to drag Neville along with him to keep him from telling on them. If they hadn't brought him their journey would have ended in the Devil's Snare. Ron wondered if Neville would ever forgive Harry for the potions puzzle, however. Neville had told Ron about some sort of puzzle they had to figure out with bottles of potions. Harry had known which to drink right away because the bottle had already been drunk from and was thus nearly empty. Neville said that Harry had stared at the bottles for a while murmuring to himself before handing over another one and assuring him that it was safe. Luckily the poison within had been slow acting and Dumbledore had been able to save Neville.

Then there had been the Basilisk in their second year. They had been looking for clues near where Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, had been found and had come upon an out-of-order toilet inhabited by a morose ghost named Moaning Myrtle. Eventually with Myrtle's help they had worked out that the creature from within the Chamber of Secrets had caused her death, and that it must have entered the bathroom from a sink tap that had never worked. Ron remembered blindly going down into the Chamber, not knowing what was waiting for them. He still had nightmares about the giant snake skin and the time he had spent trapped in a cave-in with Gilderoy Lockhart, whose memory he had accidentally obliviated.

Tonight, he told Hermione all about Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, and his capture during their third year. He told her how Snape had come upon them in the Shrieking Shack and how Lupin had forgotten to take his potion. Pettigrew had escaped, and Sirius had been kissed by the Dementors, despite Harry's best efforts to save him. Harry, too, had nearly been kissed, but Snape had saved him and been given an Order of Merlin, First Class. Harry visited Sirius in St. Mungo's occasionally, but Ron wished he wouldn't. There was no one there for his friend to see, and he always came back in such low spirits that Ron feared his friend would try to do himself harm, again.

"That's horrible," Hermione had whispered at the end of his tale, which had taken nearly three hours to tell. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the common room now, and the fire had burned away to embers. "There was nothing you could do for him, then? Even Dumbledore couldn't save him?"

"No one can reverse a Dementor's Kiss. Unless we could have turned back time…" his voice trailed away, and he wished, not for the first time, that they could have. He wondered how different Harry would be today if he hadn't lost Sirius that night; if he had been able to be a hero yet again.

They sat in silence as she handed him his essay to look over. "Thanks," he smiled at last. "Your version is much better."

"I just corrected your grammar," she said modestly. "I don't know anything about flesh eating plants." Her voice sounded almost wistful.

"Neither do I," he admitted. She laughed.

"Well," she said, stretching as she rose from the table. "Goodnight, Ron."

He felt as though the world was swirling oddly, and he leaned forward as he rose with her, his face only inches from hers. He didn't know where he had plucked up the courage, but he leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips.

He waited for her to jerk backwards or slap him. Instead, she smiled and touched his cheek. "Goodnight," she repeated before disappearing through the door that led to her dormitory.

Ron sat back down again, his knees feeling very weak, his hand barely touching his lips. The fire had burned away to nothing by the time he headed for his own bed.


	12. Track A, Chapter 5

TRACK A

CHAPTER 5

"Sir?" He startled from his papers, looking up at Beaver Teeth, who had never, in the six weeks of private tutoring sessions he had been forced to endure with her, had a question for him while in the process of brewing a potion. He closed his eyes for a moment before answering her. After all, he usually dealt with the inconvenience of her presence by pretending that she wasn't there.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" He stared her down with a slight sneer, hoping that his voice would be cold enough to stop her from launching into some useless melodramatic monolog. He really didn't have time for this.

"Sir, I was wondering if you could tell me about Dementors?" She was looking up at him wonderingly, as though he comprised the entirety of her world. He fought the reflex to gag.

"Miss Granger, I believe that you have been placed in my unwilling care to further your knowledge of Potions. I see no reason that I should be forced to spoon feed you information about Defense Against the Dark Arts as well. I assure you that I do not secretly find any time spent in your company enjoyable, nor do I yearn for more of it." He waited for that to sink in, satisfied at the chalky color she was turning before continuing, "Now finish your potion and get out of my sight."

She looked at him is askance, bit her lower lip for a moment, then resumed her incessant oration as though unaware that he had just spoken. Merlin, he hated Gryffindors! He wished someone would hook those ridiculous wires that were binding her teeth in such a way that she could never speak again. "But, Sir, Ron Weasley told me that you received an Order of Merlin…"

"I don't wish to discuss the matter." He felt a wave of coldness wash over him. Gods, she was opening her over large mouth again. All of the other professors yammered on endlessly about her intelligence, but all he could see was another dunderheaded fool Gryffindor hell bent on achieving their own agenda no matter what. Was it not obvious to her that she was steering this conversation into a place where she was entirely unwelcome?

"But, Sir, you must be able to produce a powerful Patronus charm to have been able to fight off so many Dementors at once. I was wondering if you would be willing to teach me the basics of how the charm is cast."

"No," he said firmly, "I would not."

"Sir, could you just tell me…" Gods, would she never stop?

"Miss Granger," he said coldly.

"Yes?" She looked as though Christmas had come early.

"Shut up," he smirked. She opened her mouth again, looking stricken, took one look at his face, and closed it again, thankfully, hiding the mass of metal floating around in her mouth. "If you are finished with your potion, as you must be since you are talking incessantly, pour it into a flask and turn it in." He lowered his gaze back to the parchment in front of him, performed a siphoning charm to remove the ink he had spilled when she had started talking, and resumed grading the stack of essays, waiting impatiently for Beaver Teeth to leave.

She cleared her throat as she placed her second and final potion of the night on his desk, but he quelled any desire she might have had for speech with a stony glare that threatened imminent death. She spun quickly on her heel and rushed away through the double doors and out of his sight.

Once he was certain she had really gone, he allowed himself to sigh deeply and stand up from behind his desk. Clasping his hands behind his back, he began pacing and calculating.

It had been two and a half years since the night that had cost him everything. He thought, as he had countless times before and undoubtedly would countless times again, that he should have done as his heart had begged him to and let the Potter brat be kissed along with Sirius Black. He could have told Dumbledore that there had been no time to save the boy, that he had done all he could, but it simply hadn't been enough. Dumbledore would have lapped it up if he had thrown in enough sentiment.

Unfortunately, he had acted without thinking on that night, something he seldom did, something that had nearly cost him his life a short time later. Pettigrew had escaped and discovered Voldemort lurking in Albania. Nearly a year later, the Dark Lord had risen to power again, though without Harry Potter. From what Snape had gathered, every attempt to kidnap the boy had failed spectacularly, including a well thought out ruse involving Polyjuice Potion which had been thwarted at the last moment by a cat, of all things. As Snape understood it, Barty Crouch Jr., whom everyone thought dead, was to have kidnapped Mad Eye Moody (Severus shuddered at the thought of the grizzled old monster) and impersonate the ex-Auror during his stint as a Professor. Unfortunately, Moody had been hauled away to St. Mungo's after attacking a large ginger cat outside the Magical Menagerie in Diagon Alley one day, claiming that it was under the imperious curse and had been told to suffocate him by jumping on his head when he entered the shop to buy owl pellets. Consequently, the old fool hadn't been allowed to teach and all of the Dark Lord's plans for Potter had fallen through.

When Voldemort had risen again, strong, but not as powerfully protected as he would have been had Potter's blood been a part of the spell that had brought him back to life, so to speak, he had called the Death Eaters to his side. Snape had been one of the first to arrive. Everything seemed to be going well at first. He assumed his cover was still intact, his position as a spy still secure, until the Dark Lord had pulled him to the center of the circle of on looking Death Eaters. Like all of the others, he had been forced to account for his actions in the Dark Lord's absence. Why had he not searched for Voldemort? (My Lord, I assure you I was eagerly awaiting any news of your glorious return) Why had he not allowed Quirrell the Sorcerer's Stone? (My Lord, I did not know he was under your influence, I thought him only a greedy unworthy scum). Why had he stayed with Dumbledore? (My Lord, his protection kept me from Azkaban, and I needed work. I am ready to resume my role as spy against him and his ridiculous Order My Lord). Why had he not killed Harry Potter when he had the chance? (My Lord, I thought as many did, that he might be a great Dark Wizard. I know now that he is nothing). He had been passing, he thought. He had not had to endure the Cruciatius for any of his answers, and he was not dead. Then everything he had worked towards for nearly fifteen years had fallen apart.

Why did you not allow Potter to be Kissed? He had no answer. He hadn't even considered that it would be a question. Loyalty to Dumbledore would not be an acceptable answer to the Dark Lord, nor would the thought that Potter might become a Dark wizard, as he had already shown by that time just how mundane he truly was. He tried to think, but he couldn't do it fast enough. Voldemort had cast the Cruciatius upon him, and the other Death Eaters had joined in. Snape had been declared traitor, and had nearly been killed. He still wasn't certain just how he had managed to get away, and shuddered to think that he had somehow been able to apparate in the state he had been in.

He scowled as he paced, just as he did every time that he reached this point in his reverie. Damn Potter. He wished that he would have either let the Bastard Who Lived lose his soul, or that he had allowed himself to be killed by his fellows the night of Voldemort's return. True, he had hated spying, but it had been far and away preferable to doing nothing, which was his current occupation within the ridiculous Order.

Gods, how he hated the Order of the Phoenix. Some of them were just as bad as the Death Eaters, and their meetings were eerily similar, though, admittedly, there was far less bloodshed at an Order meeting. Both groups spent the whole time scheming, plotting, and being brainwashed by the political and social views of their leader. To him, everything was gray.

Then there was the fact that everyone in the Order hated him. He hadn't minded so much when he had been Dumbledore's spy against Voldemort (or Voldemort's spy against Dumbledore, depending on the day and on who he felt had the upper hand at that particular moment). Then, he knew that no matter which side won, he would come out smelling like a rose. Then, he could lord it over the others and give them a superior smirk. Then, they could hate him all they wanted, but he had been more important than them ultimately, and they had known it and respected him for it. Now he was utterly useless. Now they just hated him. He couldn't have cared less if they liked him or not, but he did want to be respected.

This was all Potter's fault. He was supposed to feel sorry for the boy, though. He was supposed to allow him concessions for all that he had been through. Granted, his parents had been killed and left him an orphan, but they had to have been better than Snape's own parents, who had simply ignored him. He knew Lily, Harry's mother, had been better. He could allow the boy some mental instability for the loss of his parents (at least the loss of his mother), but to mourn the loss of Sirius Black's soul? For Merlin's sake, the boy hadn't even known him (something he was infinitely better for, in Snape's personal opinion). He, Snape, thought the whole thing ridiculous. Everyone else thought the Potter boy was fragile. They feared he would crack under the pressure.

Snape hoped fervently that if Potter did crack he would be the one to bring it about. At least then he would not have lived in vain.


	13. Track A, Chapter 6

TRACK A

CHAPTER 6

It was dark by the time he arrived back in his room. Three of the five four posters had their heavy velvet hangings drawn around their occupants, shielding them from whatever the night may bring. Harry lay in his bed, eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling, the hangings surrounding his bed still open to the darkness of the dormitory. Ron found this odd. Usually, Harry kept the curtains drawn securely at all times.

"Harry?" Ron whispered uncertainly into the chill night air. All of the warm feelings the past few hours he had spent with Hermione seemed to be rapidly evaporating around him. Since the first kiss that they had shared nearly three days ago, he had found himself drawn to her like a proverbial moth to a flame.

The silence seemed to stretch around him as he stepped closer to his friend's bed, the air heavy with tension. "Harry," he whispered again, louder this time, and in a voice that commanded instead of questioned. Again, there was nothing.

Abandoning all pretenses, Ron stepped over a pile of dirty clothing, and stood right above the dark haired boy, staring into his glassy green eyes. "Harry, stop it. Answer me." The glassy look never faded. Harry never blinked.

Alarmed now, Ron reached out and touched his friend's forehead. He felt cool and clammy. His heart racing, the red head grabbed Harry by the shoulders and began shaking him. A low moan issued from Harry's throat, but nothing more. He fell back limply against the pillows and stared off into nothingness again.

Ron muttered "Lumos" and his wand tip ignited in a ball of light. Frantically, he began searching around the bed from something that could have brought Harry to the state he was currently in. There was no blood this time, for that, at least, he could be thankful.

"Neville," Ron shouted across the room, not caring whether he woke everyone in Gryffindor Tower in the process. "Go and get Professor McGonagall," he belted out after hearing a sleepy reply. "Hurry," he pleaded as the round faced boy lurched his way through the drapes around his own bed and staggered sleepily away.

"'smatter?" he heard Seamus's sleepy voice ask from another bed.

"Harry's sick," Ron said shortly, still looking for what had caused this.

"He was fine an hour ago," Seamus said shortly, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. "He was just laying there, reading the Quidditch book you gave him." The sandy haired boy stood up and wandered over towards Harry's bed, helping Ron to rummage through all of Harry's possessions. "What are we looking for?"

Ron shrugged in exasperation. "I don't know! Look at him; he must have poisoned himself or something. I wish Neville would hurry up," he fairly roared just as heavy footsteps thudded up the spiral staircase just outside the dormitory door.

"Out of the way Weasley, Finnigan." Professor McGonagall, her glasses askew and hair tied back in a messy bun shoved past the two searching boys and placed her hand around Harry's wrist, looking unusually grave. She waved her wand, conjuring a stretcher and levitating Harry onto the board, which she proceeded to guide in front of her and out of the room.

"Is he going to be alright, Professor?" Ron could feel his very blood growing cold. Out in the eerie light of the corridor, Harry looked far worse that he had by the feeble light of his own wand.

"I'm taking him to the hospital wing, Weasley," the older woman replied curtly. "You may come along if you wish."

"I, ah, yeah, okay," Ron stammered as he clambered away after her rapidly retreating form. He wanted to tell Ginny, but there was no time. She would never forgive him though, not if…but he mustn't think like that.

Three long, terrible hours later, Ron found himself standing to greet Professor Dumbledore as the older man walked through the doors of the hospital ward and into the nearby waiting room where Ron had stationed himself like a stony sentinel, determined not to leave for even a moment until he knew for certain what had happened to Harry.

"Professor! Is he going to be alright?"

The older man looked wan in the breaking light of dawn. "Physically, yes. It was lucky that you discovered him last night, Mr. Weasley, or I would have had a very different answer for you, I am afraid."

"What happened?" He didn't want to know, but he had to. There was a morbid curiosity within him that demanded the terrible knowledge be revealed.

Dumbledore sighed. "It seems that young Harry wished to leave us again. This time, however, he chose a less violent way than he used during his last attempt. He ingested a slow acting poison that you were, fortunately, able to catch in time. Professor Snape has provided Madame Pompfrey with the necessary antidotes, and he should make a full recovery in no time." He halted, his blue eyes glancing upward as a flash of red hair dashed into the room to join them.

"Neville…just…tried…but staircase wouldn't…what happened?" Ginny stood into doorway, clutching a stitch in her side and breathing heavily.

"Harry tried to do himself in again," Ron said gloomily.

"How do you know it was him? What is somebody tried-"

Dumbledore cut her off. "He has admitted to it, Miss Weasley," he said gently. "He came to briefly, and asked us why we had to save him every time. He wanted to know why we wouldn't just let him die."

"He said…he asked that?" Ginny looked as though she couldn't believe the Headmaster's words.

"I am afraid so," Dumbledore nodded gravely. "I would suggest that the two of you return to your dormitory for the time being. You may come back in the afternoon to say your goodbyes, as Harry should be fully awake by then."

"What do you mean 'to say your goodbyes'? I though you said that he was going to be alright?" Ron felt the knot of tension in his chest tighten again.

Dumbledore offered the siblings before him a wan smile. "I said that he would be alright physically, Mr. Weasley. His mental health, however, is another story all together. This is his third suicide attempt in less than a year. I feel that being at Hogwarts is no longer safe for him. In the evening, he will be transported to St. Mungo's for care. He can return when the Healers see fit to release him. I just cannot risk losing him."

" I…but…what about…how can you?" Ron felt his voice train off, not really knowing what it was that he had wanted to ask in the first place. Ginny sobbed quietly, looking stunned at his side.

"I do not want to, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said softly, "but, sometimes, we have to be saved from ourselves."

That said, he swept from the room, leaving a stunned and empty silence in his wake.


	14. Track B, Chapter 4

TRACK CHANGE

TRACK B

CHAPTER 4

"So, do you hate it yet?"

"What?" Hermione looked up from the biscuit she had been nibbling on, putting down her cup of tea a bit more harshly than she had intended, and sending the contents splashing over the sides and into the waiting china saucer.

"I said, do you hate it yet?" Ginny Weasley looked across the table at her with a sly smile on her face, her eyes twinkling merrily.

"Hate what?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Teaching, of course."

"Um, well, ah, I suppose it could be worse." Hermione returned to her tea, trying desperately to think of something else, anything else, to talk about. Talking about teaching led to talking about Hogwarts, which would inevitably lead to talking about Severus, something that she was in no way ready to do.

"I don't think I could stand it. All of those kids running amuck like we used to would drive me insane." The red head leaned forward as though trying to climb inside Hermione's mind. Hermione scooted back slightly.

"To tell you the truth, Ginny, it isn't that terrible. Most of them aren't any trouble. Since I'm not a head of house I don't have to worry about any major discipline." She bit into her biscuit again, holding the tea cup up to her lips and sipping.

Sometimes, it was hard for her to be with Ginny. So consumed by guilt was she over her sham of a marriage with Ron that it was all she could do to look his sister in the eye. She wished that their monthly girls afternoon out would just be over so that she could get back to the castle and try to get on with her life.

"Well," Ginny pressed on, "not having much work to do must make a lot of time for you to work on your own life." Her sly smile deepened and she stared at Hermione expectantly.

Merlin, what do I say? Hermione wondered to herself. What did the girl across from her want to hear? Did she want to think that Hermione was moving on with her life and trying to find love once again, or did she want to believe that her brother Ron had been Hermione's one true love and that there would never be another for her? "My research keeps me busy," she answered a little more tersely than she would have liked.

"Oh." There was a long, deep silence in which Hermione began to actually gulp down her tea, hoping to finish the pot and platter of snacks so that she could be on her way. This was getting to be too much for her. She vowed, again, that next month she would simply blow her sister-in-law off, all the while knowing that in a month's time she would be back here at this very table drinking a pot of tea and gobbling down a plate of snacks, wishing that she could be anywhere else in the world. There simply wasn't anything to say anymore.

"Hermione?" Ginny asked her voice soft and tentative. "Do you miss him?"

The older girl looked up and studied her friends face. For the first time she noticed how much older Ginny was looking. Even though she was still very young, stress lines were starting to mar her once perfect face. She looked tired and world weary, her eyes had dark circles beneath them, and her hair was slightly mussed as though she no longer had the energy to care for it.

Did she miss him? Of course she missed him. For years he had been her best friend, her constant companion. They had laughed and cried together. They had stood staunchly by one another. They had fought bitterly, and they had loved deeply. It had been a love, though, that Ginny would never believe or understand. It had been the love that only a friend can possess, a love that would never die and that would last forever in some form. Passionate love could burn away, but platonic love could survive. She loved him still, but had never been in love with him.

"Of course I miss him, Ginny." She smiled slightly, trying to reassure her friend. "I think about him everyday."

"I miss him too," Ginny said quietly, her voice threatening to break. There were tears welling in her eyes as she pushed onward. "So does Harry."

"How is Harry?" Hermione asked. Talking about him hurt, too. It seemed as though she had lost everything in that damnable war. Harry had been lost to her ever since Ron had died. She often wondered if her husband had been the only glue binding her and The Boy Who Lived together. As with Ginny, there had simply been nothing to say anymore.

"Not well," Ginny said softly. She looked as though she were in some sort of personal purgatory. Her face was twisted with pain, her eyes red from holding back tears.

Hermione reached across the table, putting one of her own hands over Ginny's. "What's the matter, Gin?" She wanted to be there for her, wanted to be strong despite everything. She supposed that was all those years of friendship with Harry coming back to haunt her. This time, she had to be the hero.

Ginny sighed deeply, shutting her eyes for a moment and then lowering her gaze so they she was staring into the light wood grain of the table. "Everything, Hermione. Everything is wrong. I don't think he loves me anymore."

"Of course he loves you," Hermione reassured her. "He's always loved you Ginny. Always. After the two of you split up the first time, all he could think about was you. He was miserable without you. He needs you to be whole." This, at least, she knew was true. Harry had been a wreck during the short time he had spent without Ginny. Through their combined efforts, Hermione and Ron had managed Harry to get back together with Ginny, whatever the risks. He had been unbearable without her.

"No he doesn't. He hardly ever speaks to me anymore." Ginny's voice was growing louder, but still quavering. "He just lays there in bed, like a lump. He hardly even gets up anymore." She returned to staring at the table again, falling silent.

"He's just depressed, Gin," Hermione said earnestly. "He'll get over it. Just give him some ti-."

"Don't you dare tell me to give him time!" Ginny spat. "I've given him plenty of time. Years, Hermione! I've given him three years!" Her voice was rising shrilly, and Hermione was trying her best to quiet the girl. It wouldn't do for her to fall completely apart right here in this dingy pub.

"Ginny, everybody grieves differently. He's just trying to cope with all that he's been through. Have you tried to get him to talk to someone?"

Instantly, she knew that this had been the wrong thing to say. "Talk to someone?" Ginny was nearly shrieking, "Talk to someone?"

"Ginny, please," Hermione said, dropping her voice and hoping that her dining companion would do the same. "Maybe we should discuss this somewhere more private." People were starting to stare, and she could only imagine what kind of gossip would be circulating if Ginny didn't pull herself together in short order. It was well known that she and Harry were together.

To Hermione's intense relief, Ginny did drop her voice, though the effect was chilling. "Hermione, I don't want him to talk to anyone if he won't even talk to me. How do you think that would make me feel?"

Jealous, obviously. Hermione said nothing, just continued to hold the other girl's stare. Ginny continued, "I know that's selfish of me, but I've given up everything to be with him, and he doesn't even care. I try not to feel that way, but sometimes I just can't help it. He's tearing me apart, Hermione!"

"Ginny," Hermione said, "Have you talked to Harry about this?"

Tears began spilling over her sister-in-law's eyelashes. "I have told him, Hermione. Usually he doesn't answer, but when he does he tells me to lay off of him. He asks me if I have any idea how he's feeling. When I try to understand, he just gets angry. It's like he wants me out of his life. I don't want to leave, but I can't stay. Being strong for him is killing me." She picked up a white linen napkin and wiped her eyes, taking a deep, shaking breath. "We shouldn't be talking like this, though. We need to talk about good things, happy things. I just want to be happy again. Don't you ever feel like that?"

"Sure," Hermione said listlessly, knowing that it was the only answer Ginny wanted. Truthfully, she had trouble feeling that way because she couldn't ever remember having been happy. There had been times that had been lighter, more fun, certainly, but she had never truly been happy. She had been too different to be truly happy. She had accepted it, and held out hope that tomorrow would be far better than either today or yesterday.

"Do you think things would be better if Ron had lived?"

Gods, they had managed to come back to this again. "I guess we'll never know," she said evasively. "Look, Ginny, you have to do something about Harry before it kills you. He's destroying you. Please, don't argue," she said, watching as Ginny opened her mouth to spew out an angry retort. "You have to save yourself."

"He isn't hurting me, Hermione," Ginny said defiantly.

"Not physically, no. Inside, though, he's killing you. All of that pain, you're just rotting away inside. Please, Ginny."

"I just want to help him, Hermione. That's all."

"Ginny, you can't help someone who doesn't want help. You can't save him unless he wants to be saved. Please, Ginny, you have to save yourself."

Ginny looked back at her with haunted eyes. "Hermione, I can't. I have to go now." She pushed away from the table with such force that she almost knocked it over. "I need to get back to Harry."

"Ginny, don't…"

"It isn't as easy for me as it was for you, Hermione. He didn't die in the war and leave me so I could just walk on like I had never even loved him. You were lucky, you never had to decide to say goodbye. That choice was taken from you. You never had to face up to what you did." There was a hard look in the younger woman's eyes now, one that Hermione almost shied away from.

"What are you on about?" she asked her slowly, cautiously.

"You and Snape! I saw you, Hermione. I saw you! How do you think that made me feel? I had to live with the knowledge that you betrayed my brother to be with that great, greasy, murdering bat! I thought you would at least have the balls to tell him, but I was wrong about you there, too. How did it make you feel when your husband died to save your lover? Did you like that, Hermione? Did you?" She was screaming now, and no one in the pub was making any pretense of doing anything other than listening.

Hermione thought quickly, trying to institute some sort of damage control. "Ginny, I was devastated when Ron died. I lost my best friend when he passed away-"

"No, Hermione, you lost your husband."

"And my best friend," she said firmly. "Ginny, please believe me that I cared deeply for Ron, and never wanted to hurt him. I was going to tell him after the war was over. I was going to give him the chance to annul our binding. I wanted to make everything right."

"Make everything right? You think you can just turn off what you did by admitting to it. Guess what, Hermione? Once you break something, no matter how well you repair it, it can never be perfect again." Ginny leaned forward as though she were going to spit on Hermione before adding, "Stay away from me, and Harry. I'm through pretending I care about you. Just run off and be with Snape and keep us out of your miserable life."

The red head turned and stomped out of the pub, leaving Hermione in the midst of a sea of people staring at her alone. For the very first time in her life, Hermione Granger-Weasley didn't know what to say.


	15. Track B, Chapter 5

TRACK B

CHAPTER 5

"Have an interesting weekend?" Severus Snape looked up from the paper he was reading, leering nastily at her as she shut the door to his office.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hermione Weasley said primly. She sat down in the chair opposite his desk, wondering what the rest of the staff must think of her. Severus had decided that it would be for the best if they held their liaisons on the premise of staff meetings. He had assured her at the beginning of the school year that no one would think anything of it; she was certain to be a dreadful professor.

"Don't you?" He shoved the Daily Prophet towards her, raising his eyebrows to indicate that she was to pick it up. Hands shaking, she reached towards the newsprint, having a keen idea of what she was about to see in the gossip pages.

"How did this particular piece of information come to be printed in this paper?" He was up and pacing now, his voice that icy one of barley controlled fury that she had come to know so well in her five years as his Potions student. She could feel the irrational fear of him that she had always felt as a child rising in her once more and fought to choke it down before offering him her answer.

"I don't know."

He continued pacing. She watched the way he moved. It was as though he were stalking the room, waiting for his moment to pounce on her. "You don't know?" he said at last. She rubbed her hands together, fighting off the chill that was settling in her heart. "You don't know?" He repeated.

"Severus, please! I went out to lunch with Ginny on Saturday. We've done this once a month since Ron died. We always talk about nonsense, and I really despise going. I just, I don't know, I always thought that I had to." She was trying without much success to keep the desperation out of her voice.

"An interesting practice, I think, to discuss your adulterous affair with your sister-in-law."

She stood up then, fists clenched in fury. It was everything she could do to keep from shouting at him. "You think that we actually talked about that?"

"Obviously." His voice was empty of all feeling. His eyes looked upon her with an apathy that made her shiver. She would have rather he hated her. One had to care somewhat in order to be able to hate.

"You know something?" She said, no longer caring that she was bordering on insubordination. After what the Daily Prophet had printed her job was hanging on by a very tenuous thread anyway. "I always thought that you were intelligent. I guess was wrong."

"Oh yes, let's throw childish insults at one another until I get so angry that I fire you. Then you can blame the big bad Severus Snape for ruining your life. I won't give you that satisfaction, I'm afraid, Ms. Granger."

"Mrs. Weasley."

He raised his eyebrows. "If you and the female Weasley did not discuss your personal affairs, then why is there an article intimating details about an argument between the two of you about said affairs in a disgusting London pub?" There was a moment's pause during which she opened her mouth to speak before he demanded, "answer me, Ms. Granger!"

"I would if you would be quiet for a moment! As I said, I never spoke with Ginny about, well, you know what happened, you were there. I didn't have any idea that she knew anything about it! She never gave me any indication, ever. I always hated going to those lunches with her because all she ever did was lament the death of Ron and the depression of Harry. I always gave her the same advice, but this time she lost it completely. She started screaming at me about how I couldn't understand…well the rest is in the paper there. For once, they actually got it right." She stepped towards him, just one step, wanting to show that she was not afraid of him.

"Not a surprise in this case. Didn't you read the byline?"

She turned back to the desk and looked down at the paper, her eyes jumping to the end of the article. Ginny Weasley. "Ginny?" she said, her voice rife with disbelief. "Ginny?"

"That is what it says."

"Shut up, Severus," she snapped irritably.

Snape stepped up behind her, clenching his hands on her shoulders. "I would advise that you do not make me your enemy, Ms. Granger. You need me to get through this."

She turned around, her face only inches from his. "I don't want you as my enemy, Severus. You know that I've never wanted that."

He leaned in and kissed her full on the lips. "Good," he said. "Keep it that way, and I will take care of the rest. Go on."

She wanted to ask him what this meant for them, but she didn't dare because she wasn't totally certain that there was any such thing as them. He warned her to be discreet in her dealings with staff, students, and letters from angry parents as she left the room.

Once outside the door, she slumped against the wall for a moment, the knot in her chest trying unsuccessfully to release. She counted slowly to herself before heading down to her rooms, where she knew the Daily Prophet would be waiting for her on her bed. She had just started perusing it when she had received a note about a "staff meeting" from Severus earlier that afternoon. She wished now that she hadn't taken such care getting ready.

Truthfully, she hadn't really intended for their relationship to continue, she mused as she walked, trying to be impervious to all of the stares she was incurring from both students and staff members. She had hoped that she would be able to just forget everything that had happened between them in the past and simply move on with her life. As always, however, Severus Snape had held a mysterious power over her.

Even as a schoolgirl, Hermione had held some interest in him. Not, of course, the type of interest that she had in him now, but an interest based in mystique and more than a little fear. He had both frightened and excited her. She had been intrigued by his knowledge, enamored by his horrible nature. She had been forced to question all of her beliefs because of him. Always before, intelligence and learning had been the determination of one's worth and goodness in her mind. After meeting Snape, she had reevaluated all that she had ever known, and had become a better person for it.

She opened the door to her private rooms and headed straight to the bedroom, picking up the Daily Prophet as she sank down on the bed, and turning to the article. She became angrier and angrier as she read the words, not so much because of all that had been said, but because of who had been the one to say it. She thought briefly about writing some terrible article about either Ginny or Harry in retaliation, but couldn't bring herself to be so petty. She had it coming, after all.

She dropped the paper on the floor beside her bed and dropped her head into her hands, tugging at her hair as though the pain in her scalp could somehow relieve the pain in her heart. The disappointed letter from Ron's mum and dad, whom she adored, would be coming next, followed by all kinds of correspondence about her questionable morality from parents and others.

It didn't matter. She would deal with it as it came, and it would all blow over in short order. She had spent her whole life trying to pretend as though insults and criticism was meaningless to her; this would just be another chance to put her preaching into practice.

Slowly, she released her hair, thankful for not the first time that it was short and hadn't been able to become entangled in her fingers. She had been doing a lot of hair-pulling since she had started teaching.

She stood up, straightening her robes and walking over to the mirror to check her appearance. It would be worse for her if she didn't show up for dinner in the Great Hall tonight. She tried to think of a good cover story as she stared at herself in the mirror.

Gods, she was looking older too. There were small lines here and there, and she had even pulled out a single gray hair not too long ago, though she told herself that it could have just been dusty. She wondered how Harry was looking these days, and what Ron would have been like, had he survived.

She wondered if she would have ever told him. She had planned to, but she wondered if those plans would have ever come to be, given the opportunity. She always told herself that they would have, but sometimes, like now, she doubted herself. Would she have let him live in ignorance and breathe a sigh of relief that she had dodged that bullet? Would she have been toting children around right now, dusting furniture in a run down house while Ron worked some job at the Ministry? Would Ginny have told or would she have let it go and let them be happy? Let Ron be happy, she amended.

She turned away from the mirror and all that might have been, and walked out of the door and into what was.


	16. Track B, Chapter 6

TRACK B

CHAPTER 6

"So far I've had no less than seventeen howlers, six letters from those I considered friends at Hogwarts, and a very teary letter from Molly Weasley all because of that damned article." Hermione paced the Headmaster's office in frustration, trying to stay calm and rational. "I can't believe anyone would care! I mean, Mrs. Weasley I can understand, but the rest of them? I haven't talked to any of my classmates since his funeral, and my personal life has no bearing whatsoever upon how I do my job!"

Severus Snape said nothing, merely watched her parade of rage with little interest. Her problems were nothing compared to his, if they were to be measured by volume of correspondence. He had assigned a house elf to deal with the inevitable howlers early on, and had a team of three more elves opening the rest of the letters, lest they be contaminated with curses, and answering them in a noncommittal way. He hated people.

"Seventeen! Can you believe this? Why is it that people will believe anything they read? The worse it is, the more eager they are to believe! It's ridiculous, Severus. I'm not having problems with my younger classes, other than the occasional odd look, but the older children are becoming unbearable. They try to question me at every turn, and have absolutely no interest in Potions anymore. I think I'm going mad!"

As if they had ever had any interest in Potions. She had elicited absolutely no sympathy from Snape in light of this particular dilemma. He shuddered even now to think of all the years that he had spent trying to cram information into ridiculously feeble minds. They didn't want to know anything other than the latest gossip and other similarly useless factoids. It seemed that each successive year made them worse. He wondered how they expected to care for themselves once they left Hogwarts. His only satisfactory answer so far was that they obviously didn't.

"I got one letter from a witch in Wales who wanted me to tell her everything, every last detail, about our supposed encounter. She claimed to have been a great fan of yours while she was a student. She went in to great gory detail about every fantasy that she had ever had, though she described you as having "beautiful features" and "smooth, silky black hair". As if I would answer such tripe!" Hermione continued to pace, much to Snape's undisclosed pleasure. He liked it when she was agitated.

He was secretly overjoyed that it was so unbelievable that someone other than herself would find him attractive. He had tried gallantly to make himself as frightening and unapproachable as possible throughout his whole life, and had always felt that, in this endeavor at least, he had succeeded admirably. Not only was he unpopular, he was universally loathed by students and peers alike, with the exception of Ms. Granger, of course, and some wacko from Wales. Come to think of it, he wasn't entirely certain that Hermione found him either attractive or pleasant.

"I don't know what to do, anymore! How can I answer things like that? How can I teach when their beady little eyes are undressing me and seeing me in all manner of compromising positions with an equally disrobed version of you? How am I supposed to get any respect anymore? I don't need a bunch of sniveling little peons thinking that they're so much better than me because of some ridiculous article that they read in a dirty rag of a paper that offered no substantiating proof other than the word of some bimbo who I used to call my friend!"

She was turning red now, Snape noticed, allowing himself to lean back slightly so as to better enjoy the theatrics. She looked as though she were positively crackling with electricity. He was pleased to hear that she was finally taking the right attitude where the students were concerned. They were nothing but sniveling, dunderheaded, moronic peons. He hated the lot of them, always had, and always would. There had not been a single student to darken his dungeons that he had truly held any regard for at all, not even Hermione. To him, she had been another thickheaded Gryffindor hell bent on self-destruction in the name of bravery. Who would have though he would end up as Headmaster of Hogwarts? There were days when he wondered if he had died and gone to Hell. Hermione Granger was his lover, and he was a career babysitter of the first order.

"I mean, I just can't believe that anyone would care so much. Why should it matter to them what I do in my free time, especially if said free time activates occurred long before I was ever hired on as a professor in this school? Why is it that no one can mind their own business and allow me to tend to mine?"

He was getting a headache now. As much as he was enjoying this, he was going to have to put a stop to the proceedings before she drove him mad with her incessant yammering. He had heard enough on the topic, after all. The rest of the staff was constantly chasing him down, either wanting to know details, like that dumpy, infernal Sprout, wanting to chastise him, as was the case with Sinistra, whom he had always expected harbored an inexplicable crush on him, needling him for the truth, as Minerva McGonagall had done through the floo on the night the story broke, or, worst of all, offering to read his tea leaves and wanting to have a ridiculous discussion about three roads of some sort, like Sybil Trelawney.

He continued to half-listen to Hermione's ranting ("It's not as though I parade naked through the hallways during passing hours, or any hours for that matter, calling out your name and begging you to make passionate love to me!") while he glowered about Trelawney. Of all the people he hated, a list which was long and considerable, he supposed that she would have to be right near the top. True, his over hearing her had led to a better life, he guessed, that he would have had at the hand of the Dark Lord (though sometimes, hell, most of the time, he wished he had simply died and been put out of his misery). Even so, she was horrid in the worst way. She followed him like a dog whenever she caught sight of him, dripping with hints about how he should thank her for helping him to obtain his enviable position by virtue of his listening in on her interview with Dumbledore so many years ago. His fondest wish was to sack her, but he knew that Dumbledore never would have. So she stayed, like a thorn in his side. He hoped that all of her recent ranting towards him about roads meant that she was going even more senile than before and would soon be dying of brain rot. If course, if such a thing were possible, all of the students he had ever taught would have died long before leaving the halls of Hogwarts, so he mustn't get his hopes up.

Turning his attention back to Hermione, he held a hand up in the middle of her ranting. "Ms. Granger, do us both a favor and please do shut up."

"But-"

"Shut up. Not another word. I don't care about anything more you have to say. I don't care if the world is ending, I don't care if the sky is falling, and I certainly don't care about your post. Shut up. Now." He gave her his best icy Potions Master glare, enjoying watching her mouth quiver as she positively ached to say something.

He allowed himself a few moments silence before he spoke again. "Since you are through venting, you may now either leave my office or you may go up to my suite and wait for me while I finish tending to this tedious mountain of paperwork." He turned back to his stack of recommendations and requests from the Board of Governors, not really caring what she decided to do.

Moments later he looked up only to see her still hovering, a beady look in her eyes, which were fixed upon him, her mouth opening as though preparing for lecture. Gods, would she never get over herself? "Ms. Granger, I gave you two options, neither of which included lurking in my office. Get out, one way or another."

"But, Severus-"

"Shut up."

"But-"

He stood up from behind the desk, shoving his chair out of the way as he did so. "Ms. Granger, I believe I told you to shut up." She made a noise as though to speak again but was silenced by Severus Snape's insistence that she turn her energies away from oration and towards other more meaningful and worthwhile pursuits.


	17. Track C, Chapter 4

TRACK CHANGE

TRACK C

CHAPTER 4

"Have you given any thought as to how to deal with the Ministry's latest request?" Albus Dumbledore stared at Severus Snape across a dining table in the Headmaster's private rooms. His eyes were twinkling slightly, but there was an unusually grave air about him. Snape wished he could be anywhere but there.

Had he given the matter any thought? What was Albus playing at? How could he not have given the matter any thought? Though he would have liked to have his mind preoccupied by anything, anything, other than bearing a child with Hermione Granger (what if it had her teeth? It was doomed in the hair department.) he found his mind steadfastly returning to the topic. "Of course," he said, scowling slightly, a hint of acid laced through his voice in order to show his supreme displeasure with the interrogation.

"And have you come up with a satisfactory solution?" Dumbledore sipped his tea, silently waiting his Potions Master's response.

"There is no satisfactory solution," Snape growled, folding his arms over his chest and staring moodily at his tea cup. Quickly, he raised his glare; looking at the cup had only made things worse. Sybil Trelawney had cornered him just outside of the Great Hall last night and offered to read his palm. When he had declined, she had turned the discussion to her tea leaves, which had recently concerned him. When she had started babbling on about three roads, he had shoved her rudely out of the way and returned to his dungeon, forgetting all about dinner. Gods, he hated that woman!

Dumbledore looked as though he were trying his best to remain patient with the dark man seated across from him. "Have you come up with any solution?"

Severus fought the urge to simply rise from the table and leave Albus to enjoy his refreshments in solitude. How thick did the meddlesome old fool think that he, Severus, was? Of course he had come up with solutions. It wasn't that difficult to figure out how to impregnate Hermione. None of the solutions, however, were alternatives that he was even remotely interested in exploring. He felt that the old man would be very angry if he simply answered "shag her", so instead he opted for "I have entertained a few possibilities, of course, but none of them seem optimal for the situation. I have a little time to think on the matter. I am holding out hope that the amendment will be repealed before our unfortunate liaison must come to fruit." He wanted to ask if he could leave now, but didn't dare.

Dumbledore took another sip of tea, and it was all Snape could do not to wince. Of all the things he hated, a list which grew longer by the day, Sybil Trelawney and people with bad table manners were very near the top. He hated when people made slurping noises, as Dumbledore always did. Otherwise, the man's manners were impeccable. Could he not learn how to drink quietly? "I take it you have discussed the matter with Hermione?"

"Ms. Granger has been made aware of the situation," Snape allowed. Of course he hadn't discussed it with her. It wasn't up to her. How to go about this was his decision entirely, and he did not welcome any input whatsoever from a foolish teenage girl. She would undoubtedly have some romantic notion about the whole thing that she would wish for him to cater to.

Albus fixed him with a beady eye. Gods, here it came. "Now, Severus," he said in an admonitory voice, "you know that I don't like to meddle," Snape fought the urge to snort, "but don't you think that it would be better for everyone involved if you and Hermione were to actually discuss the situation together? This is an important decision for her also, you know."

No, he didn't think it would be better, and he didn't like having to answer to anyone. He had done enough of that during the war, and had hoped to live the rest of his life without ever having to again. He hated that he had been forced into this situation, and lately was feeling so damned sorry for himself that there were times when he found it difficult just to breathe. He wished that he would have died.

Before the end of the war, Dumbledore had made a terrible request: he wished for Snape to kill him. He had a plan for saving the world from Voldemort that involved Dumbledore himself and Potter, of all people. Albus had told Snape about how destroying the first Horcrux had weakened him, and how drinking the potion would make him vulnerable and would slowly leech through his body, painfully killing him. Dumbledore had wanted Snape to end it quickly, for he, Dumbledore, was not afraid of death.

The plan had been for Snape to make an unbreakable vow with Narcissa Malfoy, who he knew would ask him to do so because of the position Draco had been put in by Voldemort. He would vow to kill Dumbledore in Draco's stead, for the boy was not a murderer. He had made the vow as planned, but had secretly begun work on an antidote both to the curse upon Dumbledore's hand and to the potion that he would have to ingest. It had been difficult, as Snape had no access to the potion and had been forced to work in secrecy because Dumbledore certainly would not have approved, but at last he had managed to create something that he had been fairly certain would prove to be the Headmaster's salvation. He had reasoned with himself at the time that if it hadn't worked he could still kill the old fool as planned in time.

The only drawback to this plan of saving Dumbledore's life would be that Snape himself would be forced to perish due to his failure to uphold the unbreakable vow. In truth, he had not been greatly fussed over it. As far as he was concerned, his life had been far too long already.

His potion had worked. It had been a bit rough and dodgy, but it had come through and the old man before him was in better health, he claimed, than he had been in years. The only drawback was that Severus was still around to bear witness. When Draco had failed to finish Dumbledore, yet again, Voldemort had enacted his revenge by killing the boy's mother on that very night. Narcissa was dead before the binding agreement could work its magic, and Snape was a free man. Except for the guilt. He could only conclude that whatever God there might be hated him with a passion.

Bringing himself back to the present, Snape looked Dumbledore in the eye. "I suppose it might not hurt to speak with her," he allowed for the sake of simply ending this conversation and being able to go back to his self-destructive brooding in peace. He had become a master of telling people exactly what they wanted to hear over the years. He pushed away from the table as though eager to be off and conversing with his wife at once.

"Severus," Dumbledore said as the younger man made his way to the door. Snape positively itched to simply ignore him, feigning momentary deafness but resigned himself to listening. He could only hope that he would not be called back to the table.

"Yes, Professor?" He tried his best to sound impatient. He wanted Dumbledore to understand that he had wasted enough of his precious time here already and was in no mood to be delayed further.

"I expect to see you again in two week's time. And I will know if you have spoken with Hermione or not." He nodded his head slightly to indicate that Severus was dismissed, and Snape rushed through the door lest he should be stopped for more chatter.

He raged and stormed his way down to his dungeon, his mood growing progressively darker as he neared the rooms he had so enjoyed calling his own. He hoped she wouldn't be there when he arrived. He didn't want to talk to her ever, but he certainly was in no mood for conversation now. Somehow, every time he was forced to meet with Dumbledore, his monthly quota of pleasantries was used up.

He opened the door with a slight trepidation, pleading to be alone. Thankfully, there was no sign of her anywhere. He sank down in front of the fire with a stiff drink, wondering if he could simply drink himself to death, and what kind of clause the Marriage Act would hold about widows.

He sighed, dismissing the idea as quickly as it had formed. He would never be that lucky.


End file.
